FIAM1 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 


STANDING    IN    THE    TWILIGHT,   WITH    MAURICE    PLAYING   HER  ACCOMPANI- 
MENT, SHE  SANG,  VERY  SIMPLY,  AND  WITH  QUITE  POIGNANT 
BEAUTY,    THE   SONG   OF    "GOLDEN    NUMBERS" 


THE 

VEHEMENT  FLAME 

A  NOVEL 


BY 

MARGARET  DELAND 

AUTHOR   OF 

DR.  LAVENDAR'S  PEOPLE,; 
OLD  CHESTER  TALES,  ETC. 


FRONTISPIECE  BT 

C.  E.   CHAMBERS 


NEW    YORK 
GROSSET&     DUNLAP 

PUBLISHERS 

Made  in  the  United  State*  of  America 


TBE  VEHEMENT  FLAKE 


Copyright,  1922,  by  Harper  &  Brothert 
Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


To  LORIN: 

Together,  so  many  years  ago — seven,  I  think, 
or  eight — you  and  I  planned  this  story.  The  first 
chapters  had  the  help  of  your  criticism  .  .  .  then,  I 
had  to  go  on  alone,  urged  by  the  memory  of  your 
interest.  But  all  the  blunders  are  mine,  not  yours; 
and  any  merits  are  yours,  not  mine.  That  it  has  been 
written,  in  these  darkened  years,  has  been  because 
your  happy  interest  still  helped  me. 

MARGARET 
May  izihy  1922 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 


CHAPTER  I 

Love  is  as  strong  as  death;  jealousy  is  cruel 
as  the  grave:  the  coals  thereof  are  coals  of 
fire,  which  hath  a  most  vehement  flame* 

THE  SONG  OF  SOLOMON,  VIII,  6. 

'"FHERE  is  nothing  in  the  world  nobler,  and  lovelier,. 
1  and  more  absurd,  than  a  boy's  lovemaking.  And  the 
joyousness  of  it!  .  ,  . 

The  boy  of  nineteen,  Maurice  Curtis,  who  on  a  certain 
June  day  lay  in  the  blossoming  grass  at  his  wife's  feet  and 
looked  up  into  her  dark  eyes,  was  embodied  Joy!  The 
joy  of  the  warm  earth,  of  the  sunshine  glinting  on  the 
slipping  ripples  of  the  river  and  sifting  through  the  cream- 
white  blossoms  of  the  locust  which  reared  its  sheltering 
branches  over  their  heads;  the  joy  of  mating  insects 
and  birds,  of  the  whole  exulting,  creating  universe! — the 
unself conscious,  irresponsible,  wholly  beautiful  Joy  of 
passion  which  is  without  apprehension  or  humor.  The 
eyes  of  the  woman  who  sat  in  the  grass  beside  this  very 
young  man,  answered  his  eyes  with  Love.  But  it  was  a 
more  human  love  than  his,  because  there  was  doubt  in 
its  exultation.  .  .  . 

The  boy  took  out  his  watch  and  looked  at  it. 

"We  have  been  married,"  he  said,  "exactly  fifty-four 
minutes." 

"I  can't  believe  it!"  she  said. 

"  If  I  love  you  like  this  after  fifty-four  minutes  of  mar- 
ried life,  how  do  you  suppose  I  shall  feel  after  fifty-four 
years  of  it?"  He  flung  an  arm  about  her  waist,  and  hid 


2  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

his  face  against  her  knee.  "We  are  married!"  he  said,  in 
a  smothered  voice. 

She  bent  over  and  kissed  his  thick  hair,  silently.  At 
which  he  sat  up  and  looked  at  her  with  blue,  eager  eyes. 

"It  just  came  over  me!  Oh,  Eleanor,  suppose  I  hadn't 
got  you?  You  said  'No'  six  times.  You  certainly  did 
behave  very  badly,"  he  said,  showing  his  white  teeth  in 
a  broad  grin. 

"Some  people  will  say  I  behaved  very  badly  when  I 
said 'Yes,'" 

"Tell  'em  to  go  to  thunder!  What  does  Mrs,  Maurice 
Curtis  (doesn't  that  sound  pretty  fine?)  care  for  a  lot  of 
old  cats?  Don't  we  know  that  we  are  in  heaven?"  He 
caught  her  hand  and  crushed  it  against  his  mouth.  "I 
wish,"  he  said,  very  low,  "  I  almost  wish  I  could  die,  now, 
here!  At  your  feet.  It  seems  as  if  I  couldn't  live,  I  am 
so — "  He  stopped.  So — what?  Words  are  ridiculously 
inadequate  things!  .  .  .  "Happiness"  wasn't  the  name 
of  that  fire  in  his  breast.  Happiness?  "Why,  it's  God," 
he  said  to  himself;  "God"  Aloud,  he  said,  again,  "We 
are  married!" 

She  did  not  speak — she  was  a  creature  of  alluring 
silences — she  just  put  her  hand  in  his.  Suddenly  she 
began  to  sing;  there  was  a  very  noble  quality  in  the 
serene  sweetness  of  her  voice: 

"O  thou  with  dewy  locks,  who  lookest  down 
Through  the  clear  windows  of  the  merging,  turn 
Thine  angel  eyes  upon  our  western  isle, 
Which  in  full  choir  hails  thy  approach,  O  Springl" 

That  last  word  rose  like  a  flight  of  wings  into  the  blue 
air.  Her  husband  looked  at  her;  for  a  compelling  instant 
his  eyes  dredged  the  depths  of  hers,  so  that  all  the  joyous, 
frightened  woman  in  her  retreated  behind  a  flutter  of 
laughter. 

"'O  Spring!'"  he  repeated;  "we  are  Spring,  Nelly— 
you  and  I.  ...  I'll  never  forget  the  first  time  I  heard 
you  sing  that;  snowing  like  blazes  it  was, — do  you  remem- 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  3' 

ber?  But  I  swear  I  felt  this  hot  grass,  then,  in  Mrs. 
Newbolt's  parlor,  with  all  those  awful  brioa-brac  things 
around!  Yes,"  he  said,  putting  his  hand  on  a  little  sun- 
drenched bowlder  jutting  from  the  earth  beside  him;  "I 
felt  this  sun  on  my  hand!  And  when  you  came  to  'O 
Spring !'  I  saw  this  sky —  "  He  stopped,  pulled  three  blades 
of  grass  and  began  to  braid  them  into  a  ring.  "Lord!" 
he  said,  and  his  voice  was  suddenly  startled;  "what  a 
darned  little  thing  can  throw  the  switches  for  a  man! 
Because  I  didn't  get  by  in  Math.  D  and  EC.  2,  and  had 
.  to  crawl  out  to  Mercer  to  cram  with  old  Bradley — I  met 
yoid  Eleanor!  Isn't  it  wonderful?  A  little  thing  like 
I  that — just  falling  down  in  mathematics — changed  my 
whole  life?"  The  wild  gayety  in  his  eyes  sobered.  "I 
happened  to  come  to  Mercer — and,  you  are  my  wife." 
His  fingers,  holding  the  little  grassy  ring,  trembled;  but 
the  next  instant  he  threw  himself  back  on  the  grass,  and 
kicked  up  his  heels  in  a  preposterous  gesture  of  ecstasy. 
Then  caught  her  hand,  slipped  the  braided  ring  over  that 
plain  circle  of  gold  which  had  been  on  her  ringer  for 
fifty-four  minutes,  kissed  it — and  the  palm  of  her  hand — 
and  said,  "You  never  can  escape  me!  Eleanor,  your  voice 
played  the  deuce  with  me.  I  rushed  home  and  read  every 
poem  in  my  volume  of  Blake.  Go  on;  give  us  the  rest." 
She  smiled: 

**,...  And  let  our  winds 
Kiss  thy  perfumed  garments;  let  us  taste 
Thy  morn  and  evening  breath!  ..." 

"Oh — stop!  I  can't  bear  it,"  he  said,  huskily;  and; 
turning  on  his  face,  he  kissed  the  grass,  earth's  "perfumed 
garment,"  snow-sprinkled  with  locust  blossoms,  .  ,  . 

But  the  moment  of  passion  left  him  serious.  "When 
I  think  of  Mrs.  Newbolt,"  he  said,  "I  could  commit  mur- 
der." In  his  own  mind  he  was  saying,  "I've  rescued  her!" 

"Auntie  doesn't  mean  to  be  unkind,"  Eleanor  explained; 
simply;  "only,  she  never  understood  me —  Maurice! 
Be  careful!  There's  a  little  ant — don't  step  on  it." 


r4  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

She  made  him  pause  in  his  diatribe  against  Mrs.  New- 
"bolt  and  move  his  heel  while  she  pushed  the  ant  aside  with 
a  clover  blossom.  Her  anxious  gentleness  made  him  laugh, 
but  it  seemed  to  him  perfectly  beautiful.  Then  he  went 
on  about  Mrs.  Newbolt: 

"Of  course  she  couldn't  understand  you!  You  might 
as  well  expect  a  high-tempered  cow  to  understand  a 
violin  solo." 

"How  mad  she'd  be  to  be  called  a  cow!  Oh,  Maurice, 
do  you  suppose  she's  got  my  letter  by  this  time?  I  left 
it  on  her  bureau.  She'll  rage!" 

"Let  her  rage.    Nothing  can  separate  us  now." 

Thus  they  dismissed  Mrs.  Newbolt,  and  the  shock  she 
was  probably  experiencing  at  that  very  moment,  while 
reading  Eleanor's  letter  announcing  that,  at  thirty-nine, 
she  was  going  to  marry  this  very  young  man. 

"No;  nothing  can  part  us,"  Eleanor  said;  "forever  and 
ever."  And  again  they  were  silent — islanded  in  rippling 
tides  of  wind-blown  grass,  with  the  warm  fragrance  of 
dropping  locust  blossoms  infolding  them,  and  in  their 
ears  the  endless  murmur  of  the  river.  Then  Eleanor 
said,  suddenly:  "Maurice! — Mr.  Houghton?  What  will 
he  do  when  he  hears?  He'll  think  an  'elopement'  is 
dreadful." 

He  chuckled.  ' '  Uncle  Henry  ? — He  isn't  really  my  uncle, 
but  I  call  him  that; — he  won't  rage.  He'll  just  whistle. 
People  of  his  age  have  to  whistle,  to  show  they're  alive. 
I  have  reason  to  believe,"  the  cub  said,  "that  he  'whistled' 
when  I  flunked  in  my  mid-years.  Well,  I  felt  sorry,  my- 
self— on  his  account,"  Maurice  said,  with  the  serious  and 
amiable  condescension  of  youth.  "I  hated  to  jar  him. 
But— gosh!  I'd  have  flunked  A  B  C's,  for  this.  Nelly,  I 
tell  you  heaven  hasn't  got  anything  on  this!  As  for 
Uncle  Henry,  I'll  write  him  to-morrow  that  I  had  to 
get  married  sort  of  in  a  hurry,  because  Mrs.  Newbolt 
wanted  to  haul  you  off  to  Europe.  He'll  understand. 
He's  white.  And  he  won't  really  mind — after  the  first 
biff; — that  will  take  him  below  the  belt,  I  suppose,  poor 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  5 

old  Uncle  Henry!  But  after  that,  he'll  adore  you.  He 
adores  beauty." 

Her  delight  in  his  praise  made  her  almost  beautiful; 
but  she  protested  that  he  was  a  goose.  Then  she  took  the 
little  grass  ring  from  her  finger  and  slipped  it  into  her 
pocketbook.  "I'm  going  to  keep  it  always,"  she  said. 
"How  about  Mrs.  Houghton?" 

"She'll  love  you!   She's  a  peach.    And  little  Skeezics — " 

"Who  is  Skeezics?" 

**  Edith.  Their  kid.  Eleven  years  old.  She  paid  me 
the  compliment  of  announcing,  when  she  was  seven,  that 
she  was  going  to  marry  me  when  she  grew  up!  But  I 
believe,  now,  she  has  a  crush  on  Sir  Walter  Raleigh. 
She'll  adore  you,  too." 

"I'm  afraid  of  them  all,"  she  confessed;  "they  won't 
like — an  elopement." 

"They'll  fall  over  themselves  with  joy  to  think  I'm 
settled  for  life!  I'm  afraid  I've  been  a  cussed  nuisance 
to  Uncle  Henry,"  he  said,  ruefully;  "always  doing  fool 
things,  you  know, — I  mean  when  I  was  a  boy.  And  he's 
been  great,  always.  But  I  know  he's  been  afraid  I'd  take 
a  wild  flight  in  actresses." 

"'Wild'  flight?  What  will  he  call— "  She  caught  her 
breath. 

"He'll  call  it  a  'wild  flight  in  angels'!"  he  said. 

The  word  made  her  put  a  laughing  and  protesting  hand 
(which  he  kissed)  over  his  lips.  Then  she  said  that  she 
remembered  Mr.  Houghton:  "I  met  him  a  long  time  ago; 
when — when  you  were  a  little  boy." 

"And  yet  here  you  are,  'Mrs.  Maurice  Curtis!'  Isn't 
it  supreme?"  he  demanded.  The  moment  was  so  beyond 
Mnords  that  it  made  him  sophomoric — which  was  appro- 
priate enough,  even  though  his  freshman  year  had  been 
halted  by  those  examinations,  which  had  so  "jarred" 
his  guardian.  "I'll  be  twenty  in  September,"  he  said. 
Evidently  the  thought  of  his  increasing  years  gave  him 
pleasure.  That  Eleanor's  years  were  also  increasing  did 
not  occur  to  him;  and  no  wonder,  for,  compared  to  people 


6  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

like  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Houghton,  Eleanor  was  young  enough! 
— only  thirty-nine.  It  was  back  in  the  'nineties  that  she 
had  met  her  husband's  guardian,  who,  in  those  days,  had 
been  the  owner  of  a  cotton  mill  in  Mercer,  but  who  now, 
instead  of  making  money,  cultivated  potatoes  (and  tried 
to  paint).  Eleanor  knew  the  Houghtons  when  they  were 
Mercer  mill  folk,  and,  as  she  said,  this  charming  youngster 
— living  then  in  Philadelphia — had  been  "a  little  boy"; 
now,  here  he  was,  her  husband  for  "fifty-four  minutes." 
And  she  was  almost  forty,  and  he  was  nineteen.  That 
Henry  Houghton,  up  on  his  mountain  farm,  pottering 
about  in  his  big,  dusty  studio,  and  delving  among  his 
potatoes,  would  whistle,  was  to  be  expected. 

"But  who  cares?"  Maurice  said.  "It  isn't  his  funeraL" 
"He'll  think  it's  yours,"  she  retorted,  with  a  little 
laugh.  She  was  not  much  given  to  laughter.  Her  life  had 
been  singularly  monotonous  and,  having  seen  very  little 
of  the  world,  she  had  that  self-distrust  which  is  afraid 
to  laugh  unless  other  people  are  laughing,  too.  She  taught 
singing  at  Fern  Hill,  a  private  school  in  Mercer's  suburbs. 
She  did  not  care  for  the  older  pupils,  but  she  was  devoted 
to  the  very  little  girls.  She  played  wonderfully  on  the 
piano,  and  suffered  from  indigestion;  her  face  was  at  times 
almost  beautiful;  she  had  a  round,  full  chin,  and  a  lovely 
red  lower  lip;  her  forehead  was  very  white,  with  soft, 
dark  hair  rippling  away  from  it.  Certainly,  she  had 
moments  of  beauty.  She  talked  very  little;  perhaps 
because  she  hadn't  the  chance  to  talk — living,  as  she  did, 
with  an  aunt  who  monopolized  the  conversation.  She  had 
no  close  friends; — her  shyness  was  so  often  mistaken  for 
hauteur,  that  she  did  not  inspire  friendship  in  women  of 
her  own  age,  and  Mrs.  Newbolt's  elderly  acquaintances 
were  merely  condescending  to  her,  and  gave  her  good 
advice;  so  it  was  a  negative  sort  of  life.  Indeed,  her  sky 
terrier,  Bingo,  and  her  laundress,  Mrs.  O'Brien,  to  whose 
crippled  baby  grandson  she  was  endlessly  kind,  knew  her 
better  than  any  of  the  people  among  whom  she  lived. 
"When  Maurice  Curtis,  cramming  in  Mercer  because  Des- 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  7 

tiny  had  broken  his  tutor's  leg  there,  and  presenting  (with 
the  bored  reluctance  of  a  boy)  a  letter  of  introduction  from 
his  guardian  to  Mrs.  Newbolt — when  Maurice  met  Mrs. 
Newbolt's  niece,  something  happened.  Perhaps  because 
he  felt  her  starved  longing  for  personal  happiness,  or  per- 
haps her  obvious  pleasure  in  listening,  silently,  to  his 
eager  talk,  touched  his  young  vanity;  whatever  the  rea- 
son was,  the  boy  was  fascinated  by  her.  He  had  ("cuss- 
ing," as  he  had  expressed  it  to  himself)  accepted  an  invi- 
tation to  dine  with  the  "ancient  dame"  (again  his  phrase !) 
— and  behold  the  reward  of  merit : — the  niece ! — a  gentle, 
handsome  woman,  whose  age  never  struck  him,  probably 
because  her  mind  was  as  immature  as  his  own.  Before 
dinner  was  over  Eleanor's  silence — silence  is  very  moving 
to  youth,  for  who  knows  what  it  hides? — and  her  deep, 
still  eyes,  lured  him  like  a  mystery.  Then,  after  dinner 
("a  darned  good  dinner,"  Maurice  had  conceded  to 
himself)  the  calm  niece  sang,  and  instantly  he  knew  that 
it  was  Beauty  which  hid  in  silence — and  he  was  in  love 
with  her!  He  had  dined  with  her  on  Tuesday,  called  on 
Wednesday,  proposed  on  Friday; — it  was  all  quite  like 
Solomon  Grundy!  except  that,  although  she  had  fallen 
in  love  with  him  almost  as  instantly  as  he  had  fallen  in 
love  with  her,  she  had,  over  and  over  again,  refused  him. 
During  the  period  of  her  refusals  the  boy's  love  glowed 
like  a  furnace;  it  brought  both  power  and  maturity  into 
his  fresh,  ardent,  sensitive  face.  He  threw  every  thought 
to  the  winds — except  the  thought  of  rescuing  his  princess 
from  Mrs.  Newbolt's  imprisoning  bric-a-brac.  As  for  his 
"cramming,"  the  tutor  into  whose  hands  Mr.  Houghton 
had  committed  his  ward's  very  defective  trigonometry 
and  economics,  Mr.  Bradley,  held  in  Mercer  because  of 
an  annoying  accident,  said  to  himself  that  his  intentions 
were  honest,  but  if  Curtis  didn't  turn  up  for  three  days 
running,  he  would  utilize  the  time  his  pupil  was  paying 
for  by  writing  a  paper  on  "The  Fourth  Dimension." 

Maurice  was  in  some  new  dimension  himself!    Except 
"o!4  Brad,"  he  knew  almost  no  one  in  Mercer,  so  he 


[8  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

rhad  no  confidant;  and  because  his  passion  was,  perforce, 
inarticulate,  his  candid  forehead  gathered  wrinkles  on' 
positive  suffering,  which  made  him  look  as  old  as  Eleanor, 
who,  dazed  by  the  first  very  exciting  thing  that  had  ever 
happened  to  her, — the  experience  of  being  adored  (and 
adored  by  a  boy,  which  is  a  heady  thing  to  a  woman  of 
her  age!) — Eleanor  was  saying  to  herself  a  dozen  times 
a  day :  "I  mustn't  say  *  yes ' !  Oh,  what  shall  I  do  ? "  Then 
suddenly  there  came  a  day  when  the  rush  of  his  passion 
decided  what  she  would  do.  .  .  . 

Her  aunt  had  announced  that  she  was  going  to  Europe. 
"I'm  goin'  to  take  you,"  Mrs.  Newbolt  said.  "/  don't 
know  what  would  become  of  you  if  I  left  you  alone !  You 
are  about  as  capable  as  a  baby.  That  was  a  great  phrase 
of  your  dear  uncle  Thomas's — 'capable  as  a  baby.'  I'm 
puffectly  sure  the  parlor  ceilin'  has  got  to  be  tinted  this 
spring.  When  does  your  school  close  ?  We'll  go  the  minute 
it  closes.  You  can  board  Bingo  with  Mrs.  O'Brien." 

Eleanor,  deeply  hurt,  was  tempted  to  retort  with  the 
announcement  that  she  needn't  be  "left  alone  " ;  she  might 
get  married!  But  she  was  silent;  she  never  knew  what  to 
say  when  assailed  by  the  older  woman's  tongue.  She  just 
wrote  Maurice,  helplessly,  that  she  was  going  abroad. 

He  was  panic-stricken.    Going  abroad?    Uncle  Henry's 
'ancient  dame  was  a  she-devil,  to  carry  her  off!     Then, 
in  the  midst  of  his  anger,  he  recognized  his  opportunity: 
?"The  hell-cat  has  done  me  a  good  turn,  I  do  believe! 
I  I'll  get  her!    Bless  the  woman!    I'll  pay  her  passage  my- 
self, if  she'll  only  go  and  never  come  back!" 

It  was  on  the  heels  of  Mrs.  Newbolt's  candor  about 
Eleanor's  "capableness"  that  he  swept  her  resistance 
away.  "You've  got  to  marry  me,"  he  told  her;  "that's 
all  there  is  to  it. ' '  He  put  his  hand  in  his  pocket  and  pulled 
out  a  marriage  license.  "  I'll  call  for  you  to-morrow  at  ten ; 
we'll  go  to  the  mayor's  office.  I've  got  it  all  fixed  up.. 
So,  you  see  there's  no  getting  out  of  it." 

"But,"  she  protested,  dazzled  by  the  sheer,  beautiful 
! impertinence  of  it,  "Maurice,  I  can't — I  won't — J — u 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  9 

"You  will,"  he  said.  "To-morrow's  Saturday,"  he 
added,  practically,  "and  there's  no  school,  so  you're  free.'* 
He  rose.  .  .  .  "Better  leave  a  letter  for  your  aunt.  I'll 
be  here  at  five  minutes  to  ten.  Be  ready!"  He  paused 
and  looked  hard  at  her;  caught  her  roughly  in  his  arms, 
kissed  her  on  her  mouth,  and  walked  out  of  the  room. 

The  mere  violence  of  it  lifted  her  into  the  Great  Ad- 
venture! When  he  commanded,  "Be  ready!"  she,  with  a 
gasp,  said,  "Yes." 

Well;  they  had  gone  to  the  mayor's  office,  and  been 
married;  then  they  had  got  on  a  car  and  ridden  through 
Mercer's  dingy  outskirts  to  the  end  of  the  route  in  Med- 
field,  where,  beyond  suburban  uglinesses,  there  were 
glimpses  of  green  fields. 

Once  as  the  car  rushed  along,  screeching  around  curves 
and  banging  over  switches,  Eleanor  said,  "I've  come  out 
here  four  times  a  week  for  four  years,  to  Fern  Hill." 

And  Maurice  said:  "Well,  that's  over!  No  more  school- 
teaching  for  you!" 

She  smiled,  then  sighed.  "I'll  miss  my  little  people," 
she  said. 

But  except  for  that  they  were  silent.  When  they  left 
the  car,  he  led  the  way  across  a  meadow  to  the  bank  of 
the  river;  there  they  sat  down  under  the  locust,  and  he 
kissed  her,  quietly;  then,  for  a  while,  still  dumb  with  the 
wonder  of  themselves,  they  watched  the  sky,  and  the 
sailing  white  clouds,  and  the  river — flowing — flowing;  and 
each  other. 

"Fifty-four  minutes,"  he  had  said.  .  .  . 

So  they  sat  there  and  planned  for  the  endless  future — 
the  "fifty-four  years." 

"When  we  have  our  golden  wedding,"  he  said,  "we 
shall  come  back  here,  and  sit  under  this  tree — "  He 
paused;  he  would  be — let's  see :  nineteen,  plus  fifty,  makes 
sixty-nine.  He  did  not  go  farther  with  his  mental  arith- 
metic, and  say  thirty-nine  plus  fifty;  he  was  thinking  only 
of  himself,  not  of  her.  In  fifty  years  he  would  be,  he 
told  himself,  an  old  man. 


io  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

And  what  would  happen  in  all  these  fifty  golden  years? 
"You  know,  long  before  that  time,  perhaps  it  won't  be—- 
just us?"  he  said. 

The  color  leaped  to  her  face;  she  nodded,  finding  no 
words  in  which  to  expand  that  joyous  "perhaps,"  which 
touched  the  quick  in  her.  Instantly  that  sum  in  addition 
which  he  had  not  essayed  in  his  own  mind,  became  unim- 
portant in  hers.  What  difference  did  the  twenty  severing 
years  make,  after  all  ?  Her  heart  rose  with  a  bound — she 
had  a  quick  vision  of  a  little  head  against  her  bosom! 
But  she  could  not  put  it  into  words.  She  only  challenged 
him: 

"I  am  not  clever  like  you.  Do  you  think  you  can  love 
a  stupid  person  for  fifty  years?" 

"For  a  thousand  years! — but  you're  not  stupid." 

She  looked  doubtful ;  then  went  on  confessing :  ' '  Auntie 
says  I'm  a  dummy,  because  I  don't  talk  very  much.  And 
I'm  awfully  timid.  And  she  says  I'm  jealous." 

"You  don't  talk  because  you're  always  thinking;  that's 
one  of  the  most  fascinating  things  about  you,  Eleanor, — 
you  keep  me  wondering  what  on  earth  you're  thinking 
about.  It's  the  mystery  of  you  that  gets  me!  And  if 
you're  'timid' — well,  so  long  as  you're  not  afraid  of  me, 
the  more  scared  you  are,  the  better  I  like  it.  A  man," 
said  Maurice,  "likes  to  feel  that  he  protects  his — his  wife." 
He  paused  and  repeated  the  glowing  word  .  .  .  "his 
wife!"  For  a  moment  he  could  not  go  on  with  their  care- 
less talk;  then  he  was  practical  again.  That  word  "pro- 
tect" was  too  robust  for  sentimentality.  "As  for  being 
jealous,  that,  about  me,  is  a  joke!  And  if  you  were,  it 
would  only  mean  that  you  loved  me — so  I  would  be  flat- 
tered. I  hope  you'll  be  jealous!  Eleanor,  promise  me 
you'll  be  jealous?"  They  both  laughed;  then  he  said: 
"I've  made  up  my  mind  to  one  thing.  I  won't  go  back 
to  college." 

"Oh,  Maurice!" 

He  was  very  matter  of  fact.  "  I'm  a  married  man;  I'm 
going  to  support  my  wife!"  He  ran  his  ringers  through 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  « 

his  thick  blond  hair  in  ridiculous  pantomime  of  terrified 
responsibility.  "Yes,  sir!  I'm  out  for  dollars.  Well,  I'm 
glad  I  haven't  any  near  relations  to  get  on  their  ear, 
and  try  and  mind  my  business  for  me.  Of  course,"  he 
ruminated,  "Bradley  will  kick  like  a  steer,  when  I  tell 
him  he's  bounced!  But  that  will  be  on  account  of  money. 
Oh,  I'll  pay  him,  all  samee,"  he  said,  largely.  "Yes;  I'm 
going  to  get  a  job."  His  face  sobered  into  serious  happi- 
ness. "My  allowance  won't  provide  bones  for  Bingo! 
So  it's  business  for  me.0 

She  looked  a  little  frightened.  "Oh,  have  I  made  you 
go  to  work?"  She  had  never  asked  him  about  money; 
she  had  plunged  into  matrimony  without  the  slightest 
knowledge  of  his  income. 

"I'll  chuck  Bradley,  and  I'll  chuck  college,"  he  an- 
nounced. "I've  got  to!  Of  course,  ultimately,  I'll  have 
plenty  of  money.  Mr.  Houghton  has  dry-nursed  what 
father  left  me,  and  he  has  done  mighty  well  with  it;  but 
I  can't  touch  it  till  I'm  twenty-five — worse  luck!  Father 
had  theories  about  a  fellow  being  kept  down  to  brass 
tacks  and  earning  his  living,  before  he  inherited  money 
another  man  had  earned — that's  the  way  he  put  it.  Queer 
idea.  So,  I  must  get  a  job.  Uncle  Henry  '11  help  me.  You 
may  bet  on  it  that  Mrs.  Maurice  Curtis  shall  not  wash 
dishes,  nor  yet  feed  the  swine,  but  live  on  strawberries, 
sugar,  and —  What's  the  rest  of  it?" 

"I  have  a  little  money  of  my  own,"  she  said;  "six 
hundred  a  year." 

"It  will  pay  for  your  hairpins,"  he  said.Jand  put  out 
his  hand  and  touched  her  hair — black,  and  very  soft  and 
wavy ;*j" but  the  strawberries  I  shall  provide." 

"I  never  thought  about  money,"  she  confessed. 

"Of  course  not!    Angels  don't  think  about  money." 

*'So  they  were  married";  and  in  the  meadow,  fifty-four 

minutes  later,  the  sun  and  wind  and  moving  shadows, 

and   the   river — flowing — flowing — heralded   the   golden 

years,  and  ended  the  saying:  "lived  happy  ever  afterward" 

2 


CHAPTER  II 

IT  was  three  days  after  the  young  husband,  lying  in 
the  grass,  his  cheek  on  his  wife's  hand,  had  made  his 
careless  prophecy  about  "whistling,"  that  Henry  Hough- 
ton,  jogging  along  in  the  sunshine  toward  Grafton  for 
the  morning  mail,  slapped  a  rein  down  on  Lion's  fat 
back,  and  whistled,  placidly  enough.  .  .  .  (But  that  was 
before  he  reached  the  post  office.)  His  wife,  whose  sweet 
and  rosy  bulk  took  up  most  of  the  space  on  the  seat, 
listened,  smiling  with  content.  When  he  was  placid,  she 
was  placid;  when  he  wasn't,  which  happened  now  and 
then,  she  was  an  alertly  reasonable  woman,  defending  him 
from  himself,  and  wrenching  from  his  hand,  with  ironic 
gayety,  or  rallying  seriousness,  the  dagger  of  his  discon- 
tent with  what  he  called  his  "failure"  in  life — which  was 
what  most  people  called  his  success — a  business  career, 
chosen  because  the  support  of  several  inescapable  blood 
relations  was  not  compatible  with  his  own  profession  of 
painting.  All  his  training  and  hope  had  been  centered 
upon  art.  The  fact  that,  after  renouncing  it,  an  admirably 
managed  cotton  mill  provided  bread  and  butter  for  sickly 
sisters  and  wasteful  brothers,  to  say  nothing  of  his  own 
modest  prosperity,  never  made  up  to  him  for  the  career 
of  a  struggling  and  probably  unsuccessful  artist — which 
he  might  have  had.  He  ran  his  cotton  mill,  and  supported 
all  the  family  undesirables  until,  gradually,  death  and 
marriage  took  the  various  millstones  from  around  his 
neck;  then  he  retired,  as  the  saying  is — although  it  was 
really  setting  sail  again  for  life — to  his  studio  (with  a 
farmhouse  attached)  in  the  mountains.  There  had  been 
a  year  of  passionate  work  and  expectation — but  his 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  13" 

pictures  were  dead.    "I  sold  my  birthright  for  a  bale  of 
cotton,"  he  said,  briefly. 

But  he  still  stayed  on  the  farm,  and  dreamed  in  his 
studio  and  tried  to  teach  his  little,  inartistic  Edith  to 
draw,  and  mourned.  As  for  business,  he  said,  "Go  to  the 
devil!" — except  as  he  looked  after  Maurice  Curtis's 
affairs ;  this  because  the  boy's  father  had  been  his  friend. 
But  it  was  the  consciousness  of  the  bartered  birthright 
and  the  dead  pictures  in  his  studio  which  kept  him  from 
"whistling"  very  often.  However,  on  this  June  morning, 
plodding  along  between  blossoming  fields,  climbing 
wooded  hills,  and  clattering  through  dusky  covered 
bridges,  he  was  not  thinking  of  his  pictures;  so,  naturally 
enough,  he  whistled;  a  very  different  whistling  from  that 
which  Maurice,  lying  in  the  grass  beside  his  wife  of  fifty- 
four  minutes,  had  foreseen  for  him — when  the  mail  should  be 
distributed !  Once,  just  from  sheer  content,  he  stopped  his : 

"Did  you  ever  ever  ever 

In  your  life  life  life 
See  the  devil  devil  devil 
Or  his  wife  wife  wife — M 

and  turned  and  looked  at  his  Mary. 

"Nice  day,  Kit?"  he  said;  and  she  said,  "Lovely!" 
Then  she  brushed  her  elderly  rosy  cheek  against  his  shabby 
coat  and  kissed  it.  They  had  been  married  for  thirty 
years,  and  she  had  held  up  his  hands  as  he  placed  upon 
the  altar  of  a  repugnant  duty,  the  offering  of  a  great 
renunciation.  She  had  hoped  that  the  birth  of  their  last, 
and  only  living,  child,  Edith,  would  reconcile  him  to  the 
material  results  of  the  renunciation;  but  he  was  as  indif- 
ferent to  money  for  his  girl  as  he  had  been  for  himself. 
...  So  there  they  were,  now,  living  rather  carefully,  in 
an  old  stone  farmhouse  on  one  of  the  green  foothills  of 
the  Allegheny  Mountains.  The  thing  that  came  nearest  to 
soothing  the  bruises  on  his  mind  was  the  possibilities  he 
saw  in  Maurice. 

"The  inconsequence  of  the  scamp  amounts  to  genius!" 


i4  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

he  used  to  tell  his  Mary  with  admiring  displeasure  at  one 
or  another  of  Maurice's  scrapes.  "Heaven  knows  what 
he'll  do  before  he  gets  to  the  top  of  Fool  Hill,  and  begins 
to  run  on  the  State  Road!  Look  at  this  mid-year  per- 
formance. He  ought  to  be  kicked  for  flunking.  He  simply 
dropped  everything  except  his  music!  Apparently  he 
can't  study.  Even  spelling  is  a  matter  of  private  judgment 
with  Maurice!  Oh,  of  course,  I  know  I  ought  to  have 
scalped  him;  his  father  would  have  scalped  him.  But 
somehow  the  scoundrel  gets  round  me!  I  suppose  its 
because,  though  he  is  provoking,  he  is  never  irritating. 
And  he's  as  much  of  a  fool  as  I  was  at  his  age!  That 
keeps  me  fair  to  him.  Well,  he  has  stuff  in  him,  that  boy. 
He's  as  truthful  as  Edith ;  an  appalling  tribute,  I  know — 
but  you  like  it  in  a  cub.  And  there's  no  flapdoodle  about 
him;  and  he  never  cried  baby  in  his  life.  And  he  has 
imagination  and  music  and  poetry!  Edith  is  a  nice 
little  clod  compared  to  him." 

The  affection  of  these  two  people  for  Maurice  could 
hardly  have  been  greater  if  he  had  been  their  son. 
"Mother  loves  Maurice  better  'an  she  loves  me,"  Edith 
used  to  reflect;  "I  guess  it's  because  he  never  gets  muddy 
the  way  I  do,  and  tracks  dirt  into  the  house.  He  wipes 
his  feet." 

"What  do  you  suppose,"  Mrs.  Houghton  said,  remem- 
bering this  summing  up  of  things,  "Edith  told  me  this 
morning  that  the  reason  I  loved  Maurice  more  than  I 
loved  her — " 

"What!" 

"Yes;  isn't  she  funny? — was  because  he  'wiped  hia 
feet  when  he  came  into  the  house.'" 

Edith's  father  stopped  whistling,  and  smiled:  "That 
child  is  as  practical  as  a  shuttle;  but  she  hasn't  a  mean 
streak  in  her!"  he  said,  with  satisfaction,  and  began  to 
whistle  again.  "Nice  girl,"  he  said,  after  a  while;  "but 
the  most  rationalizing  youngster!  I  hope  she'll  get  fool- 
ish before  she  falls  in  love.  Mary,  one  of  these  days, 
when  she  grows  up,  perhaps  she  and  Maurice — ?" 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  15 

"Matchmaker!"  she  said,  horrified;  then  objected: 
"Can't  she  rationalize  and  fall  in  love  too?  I'm  rather 
given  to  reason  myself,  Henry." 

"Yes,  honey;  you  are  now;  but  you  were  as  sweet  a 
fool  as  anybody  when  you  fell  in  love,  thank  God."  She 
laughed,  and  he  said,  resignedly,  "I  suppose  you'll  have 
an  hour's  shopping  to  do  ?  You  have  only  one  of  the  vices 
of  your  sex,  Mary,  you  have  the  'shopping  mind.'  How- 
ever, with  all  thy  faults  I  love  thee  still.  .  .  .  We'll  go 
to  the  post  office  first ;  then  I  can  read  my  letters  while 
you  are  colloguing  with  the  storekeepers." 

Mrs.  Houghton,  looking  at  her  list,  agreed,  and  when 
he  got  out  for  the  mail  she  was  still  checking  off  people 
and  purchases;  it  was  only  when  she  had  added  one  or 
two  more  errands  that  she  suddenly  awoke  to  the  fact 
that  he  was  very  slow  in  coming  back  with  the  letters. 
"Stupid!"  she  thought,  "opening  your  mail  in  the  post 
office,  instead  of  keeping  it  to  read  while  I'm  shopping!" — 
but  even  as  she  reproached  him,  he  came  out  and  climbed 
into  the  buggy,  in  very  evident  perturbation. 

"Where  do  you  want  to  go?"  he  said;  she,  asking  no 
questions  (marvelous  woman!)  told  him.  He  said 
"G'tap!"  angrily;  Lion  backed,  and  the  wheel  screeched 
against  the  curb.  "Oh,  g'on!"  he  said.  Lion  switched 
his  tail,  caught  a  rein  under  it,  and  trotted  off.  Mr. 
Houghton  leaned  over  the  dashboard,  swore  softly,  and 
gave  the  horse  a  slap  with  the  rescued  rein.  But  the  out- 
burst loosened  the  dumb  distress  that  had  settled  upon 
him  in  the  post  office;  he  gave  a  despairing  grunt: 

"Well!  Maurice  has  come  the  final  cropper." 

"Smith's  next,  dear,"  she  said;   "What  is  it,  Henry?" 

"He's  gone  on  the  rocks  (druggist  Smith,  or  fish 
Smith?)" 

"Druggist.  Has  Maurice  been  drinking?"  She  could 
not  keep  the  anxiety  out  of  her  voice. 

"Drinking?  He  could  be  as  drunk  as  a  lord  and  I 
wouldn't —  Whoa,  Lion!  .  .  .  Get  me  some  shaving 
soap,  Kit!"  he  called  after  her,  as  she  went  into  the  shop. 


16  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

When  she  came  back  with  her  packages  and  got  into 
the  buggy,  she  said,  quietly,  "Tell  me,  Henry." 

"He  has  simply  done  what  I  put  him  in  the  way  of 
doing  when  I  gave  him  a  letter  of  introduction  to  that 
Mrs.  Newbolt,  in  Mercer." 

"Newbolt?   I  don't  remember — " 

"Yes,  you  do.  Pop  eyes.  Fat.  Talked  every  minute, 
and  everything  she  said  a  nonsequitur.  I  used  to  wonder 
why  her  husband  didn't  choke  her.  He  was  on  our  board. 
Died  the  year  we  came  up  here.  Talked  to  death, 
probably." 

"Oh  yes.    I  remember  her.    Well?" 

"I  thought  she  might  make  things  pleasant  for  Maurice 
while  he  was  cramming,  He  doesn't  know  a  soul  in  Mercer, 
and  Bradley's  game  leg  wouldn't  help  out  with  sociability. 
So  I  gave  him  letters  to  two  or  three  people.  Mrs.  New- 
bolt  was  one  of  them.  I  hated  her,  because  she  dropped 
her  g's;  but  she  had  good  food,  and  I  thought  she'd  ask 
him  to  dinner  once  in  a  while." 

"Well?" 

"SJie  did.    And  he's  married  her  niece." 

"What!  Without  your  consent!  I'm  shocked  that  Mrs, 
Newbolt  permitted — " 

"Probably  her  permission  wasn't  asked,  any  more  than 
mine." 

"You  mean  an  elopement?  How  outrageous  in 
Maurice!"  Mrs.  Houghton  said. 

Her  husband  agreed.  "Abominable!  Mary,  do  you 
mind  if  I  smoke?" 

"Very  much;  but  youll  do  it  all  the  same.  I  suppose 
the  girl's  a  mere  child?"  Then  she  quailed.  "Henry! — 
she's  respectable,  isn't  she?  I  couldn't  bear  it,  if — if  she 
was  some — dreadful  person." 

He  sheltered  a  sputtering  match  in  his  curving  hand 
and  lighted  a  cigar;  then  he  said,  "Oh,  I  suppose  she's 
respectable  enough;  but  she's  certainly  'dreadful.'  He 
says  she's  a  music  teacher.  Probably  caught  him  that 
way.  Music  would  lead  Maurice  by  the  nose.  Confound 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  17 

that  boy!  And  his  father  trusted  me."  His  face  twitched 
with  distress.  ''As  for  being  a  'mere  child,' — there;  read 
his  letter." 

She  took  it,  fumbling  about  for  her  spectacles;  half- 
way through,  she  gave  an  exclamation  of  dismay.  "  '  A  few 
years  older'? — she  must  be  twenty  years  older!" 

"Good  heavens,  Mary!" 

"Well,  perhaps  not  quite  twenty,  but — " 

Henry  Houghton  groaned.  "I'll  tell  Bradley  my  opin- 
ion of  him  as  a  coach." 

"My  dear,  Mr.  Bradley  couldn't  have  prevented  it. 
.  .  .  Yes;  I  remember  her  perfectly.  She  came  to  tea 
with  Mrs.  Newbolt  several  times.  Rather  a  temperamental 
person,  I  thought." 

"' Temperamental' ?  May  the  Lord  have  mercy  on 
him!"  he  said.  "Yes,  it  comes  back  to  me.  Dark  eyes? 
Looked  like  one  of  Rossetti's  women?" 

"Yes.  Handsome,  but  a  little  stupid.  She's  proved 
that  by  marrying  Maurice!  Oh,  what  a  fool!"  Then  she 
tried  to  console  him:  "But  one  of  the  happiest  marriages 
I  ever  knew,  was  between  a  man  of  thirty  and  a  much 
older  woman." 

"  But  not  between  a  boy  of  nineteen  and  a  much  older 
woman!  The  trouble  is  not  her  age  but  his  youth.  Why 
didn't  she  adopt  him?  ...  I  bet  the  aunt's  cussing,  too." 

"Probably.  Well,  we've  got  to  think  what  to  do," 
Mary  Houghton  said. 

"Do?   What  do  you  mean?   Get  a  divorce  for  him?" 

"He's  just  married;  he  doesn't  want  a  divorce  yet," 
she  said,  simply;  and  her  husband  laughed,  in  spite  of  his 
consternation. 

"Oh,  lord,  I  wish  I  was  asleep!  I've  always  been 
afraid  he'd  go  high-diddle-diddling  off  with  some  shady 
girl; — but  I  swear,  that  would  have  been  better  than 
marrying  his  grandmother!  Mary,  what  I  can't  under- 
stand, is  the  woman.  He's  a  child,  almost;  and  vanity 
at  having  a  woman  of  forty  fall  in  love  with  him  explains 
him.  And,  besides,  Maurice  is  no  Eurydice;  music  would 


i8  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

lead  him  into  hell,  not  out  of  it.  It's  the  other  fool  that 
puzzles  me." 

His  wife  sighed;  "If  her  mind  keeps  young,,  it  won't 
matter  so  much  about  her  body." 

"My  dear,"  he  said,  dryly,  "human  critters  are  human 
critters.  In  ten  years  it  will  be  an  impossible  situation." 

But  again  she  contradicted  him:  "No!  Unhappiness 
is  possible;  but  not  inevitable!" 

"Dear  Goose,  may  a  simple  man  ask  how  it  is  to  be 
avoided?" 

"By  unselfishness,"  she  said;  "no  marriage  ever  went 
on  the  rocks  where  both  'human  critters'  were  unself- 
ish !  But  I  hope  this  poor,  foolish  woman's  mind  will  keep 
young.  If  it  doesn't,  well,  Maurice  will  just  have  to  be 
tactful.  If  he  is,  it  may  not  be  so  very  bad,"  she  said,  with 
determined  optimism. 

"Kit,  when  a  man  has  to  be  'tactful*  with  his  wife, 
God  help  him ! — or  a  woman  with  her  husband/'  he  added 
in  a  sudden  tender  afterthought.  "We've  never  been 
'tactful'  with  each  other,  Mary?"  She  smiled,  and  put 
her  cheek  against  his  shoulder.  "'Tactfulness'  between 
a  husband  and  wife,"  said  Henry  Houghton,  "is  confes- 
sion that  their  marriage  is  a  failure.  You  may  tell  'em  so, 
from  me." 

"You  may  tell  them  yourself!"  she  retorted.  "What 
are  they  going  to  live  on?"  she  pondered.  "Can  his 
allowance  be  increased?" 

"It  can't.  You  know  his  father's  will.  He  won't  get 
his  money  until  he's  twenty-five." 

"He'll  have  to  go  to  work,"  she  said;  "which  means 
not  going  back  to  college,  I  suppose?" 

"Yes,"  he  said,  grimly;  "who  would  support  his  lady- 
love while  he  was  in  college?  And  it  means  giving  up  his 
music,"  he  added. 

"If  he  makes  as  much  out  of  his  renunciation  as  you 
have  out  of  yours,"  she  said,  calmly,  "we  may  bless  this 
poor  woman  yet." 

"Oh,  you  old  humbug,"  he  told  her — but  he  smiled. 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  i</ 

Then  she  repeated  to  him  an  old,  old  formula  for  peace: 
'"Consider  the  stars,'  Henry,  and  young  foolishness  will 
seem  very  small  Maurice's  elopement  won't  upset  the 
universe." 

They  were  both  silent  for  a  while;  then  Mary  Houghton 
said,  "I'll  write  the  invitation  to  them;  but  you  must 
second  it  when  you  answer  his  letter." 

"Invitation?   What  invitation?" 

"Why,  to  come  and  stay  at  Green  Hill  until  you  can 
find  something  for  him  to  do." 

"Ill  be  hanged  if  I  invite  her!  I'll  have  nothing  to  do 
with  her!  Maurice  can  come,  of  course;  but  he  can't 
bring — " 

His  wife  laughed,  and  he,  too,  gave  a  reluctant  chuckle. 
"I  suppose  I've  got  to?"  he  groaned. 

"Of  course,  you've  got  to!"  she  said. 

The  rest  of  the  ride  back  to  the  old  stone  house  among 
its  great  trees,  halfway  up  the  mountain,  was  silent.  Mrs. 
Houghton  was  thinking  what  room  she  would  give  the 
bride  and  groom — for  the  little  room  Maurice  had  had 
in  all  his  vacations  since  he  became  her  husband's  ward 
was  not  suitable.  "Edith  will  have  to  let  them  have  her 
room,"  she  thought.  She  knew  she  could  count  on  Edith 
not  to  make  a  fuss.  "It's  such  a  comfort  that  Edith  has 
sense,"  she  ruminated  aloud. 

But  her  husband  was  silent;  there  was  no  more  whis-. 
tling  for  Henry  Houghton  that  day. 


CHAPTER  III 

EDITH  and  her  fourteen-year-old  neighbor,  Johnny 
Bennett,  had  climbed  into  the  old  black-heart  cherry 
tree — (Johnny  always  conceded  that  Edith  was  a  good 
climber — "for  a  girl.")  But  when  they  saw  Lion,  tug- 
ging up  the  road,  Edith,  who  was  economical  with  social 
amenities,  told  her  guest  to  go  home.  "I  don't  want 
you  any  longer,"  she  said;  "father  and  mother  are 
coming!"  And  with  that  she  rushed  around  to  the  stable 
door,  just  in  time  to  meet  the  returning  travelers,  and 
ask  a  dozen  questions — the  first: 

"Did  you  get  a  letter  from  Maurice?" 

But  when  her  father  threw  the  reins  down  on  Lion's 
back,  and  said,  briefly,  "Can't  you  unharness  him  your- 
self, Buster?"  she  stuck  out  her  tongue,  opened  her  eyes 
wide,  and  said  nothing  except,  "Yes,  father."  Then  she 
proceeded,  with  astonishing  speed,  to  put  Lion  into  his 
stall,  run  the  buggy  into  the  carriage  house,  and  slam  the 
stable  door,  after  which  she  tore  up  to  her  mother's  room. 

"Mother!    Something  has  bothered  father!" 

"Well,  yes,"  Mrs.  Houghton  said;  "a  little.  Maurice 
is  married." 

Edith's  lips  fell  apart;  "Maurice?  Married?  Who  to? 
Did  she  wear  a  veil?  I  don't  see  why  father  minds." 

Mrs.  Houghton,  standing  in  front  of  her  mirror,  said, 
dryly:  "There  are  things  more  important  than  veils, 
when  it  comes  to  getting  married.  In  the  first  place, 
they  eloped — " 

"Oh,  how  lovely!  I  am  going  to  elope  when  I  get 
married!" 

"I  hope  you  won't  have  such  bad  taste.  Of  course 
they  ought  not  to  have  got  married  that  way.  But  the 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  ax" 

thing  that  bothers  your  father,  is  that  the  lady  Maurice 
has  married  is — is  older  than  he." 

"How  much  older?"  Edith  demanded;   "a  year?" 

"I  don't  just  know.   Probably  twenty  years  older." 

Edith  was  silent,  rapidly  adding  up  nineteen  and' 
twenty;  then  she  gasped,  "Thirty-nine!" 

"Well,  about  that;  and  father  is  sorry,  because  Maurice1 
can't  go  back  to  college.  He  will  have  to  go  into  business." 

Edith  saw  no  cause  for  regret  in  this.  "Guess  he's  glad 
not  to  have  to  learn  things !  But  why  weren't  we  invited 
to  the  wedding?  I  always  meant  to  be  Maurice's  brides- 
maid." 

Mrs.  Houghton  said  she  didn't  know.  Edith  was  silent, 
for  a  whole  minute.  Then  she  said,  soberly: 

"I  suppose  father's  sorry  'cause  she'll  die  so  soon,  she's 
so  old?  And  then  Maurice  will  feel  awfully.  Poor  Maurice! 
Well,  I'll  live  with  him,  and  comfort  him." 

"My  dear,  I'm  fifty!"  Mrs.  Houghton  said,  much 
amused. 

"Oh,  well,  you—  "  Edith  demurred;  "that's  different 
You're  my  mother,  and  you —  She  paused;  "I  never 
thought  of  you  being  old,  or  dying,  ever.  And  yet  I  sup- 
pose you  are  rather  old?"  She  pondered.  "I  suppose 
some  day  you'll  die?  Mother! — promise  me  you  won't!" 
she  said,  quaveringly. 

"Edith,  don't  be  a  goose!"  Mrs.  Houghton  said,  laugh- 
ing— but  she  turned  and  kissed  the  rosy,  anxious  face. 
"Maurice's  wife  isn't  old  at  all.  She's  quite  young. 
It's  only  that  he  is  so  much  younger." 

Edith  lapsed  into  silence.  She  was  very  quiet  for  the 
rest  of  that  summer  morning.  Just  before  dinner  she  went 
across  the  west  pasture  to  Doctor  Bennett's  house,  and, 
hailing  Johnny,  told  him  the  news.  His  indifference — for 
he  only  looked  at  her,  with  his  mild,  nearsighted  brown 
eyes,  and  said,  "Huh?" — irritated  her  so  that  she  would 
not  confide  her  dismay  at  Maurice's  approaching  widower- 
hood,  but  ran  home  to  a  sympathetic  kitchen:  "Katy! 
Maurice  got  eloped!" 


22  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

Katy  was  much  more  satisfactory  than  Johnny;  she 
said,  "God  save  us!  Mr.  Maurice  eloped?  Who  with, 
then?  Well,  well!"  But  Edith  was  still  abstracted.  Time, 
as  related  to  life,  had  acquired  significance.  At  dinner  she 
regarded  her  father  with  troubled  eyes.  He,  too,  was  old, 
like  Maurice's  wife.  He,  too,  as  well  as  the  bride,  and  her 
mother,  would  die,  sometime.  And  she  and  Maurice 
would  have  such  awful  grief!  .  .  .  Something  tightened 
in  her  throat;  "Please  'scuse  me,"  she  said,  in  a  muffled 
voice;  and,  slipping  out  of  her  chair,  made  a  dash  for  the 
back  door,  and  ran  as  hard  as  she  could  to  her  chicken 
house.  The  little  place  was  hot,  and  smelled  of  feathers; 
through  the  windows,  cobwebbed  and  dusty,  the  sunshine 
fell  dimly  on  the  hard  earth  floor,  and  on  an  empty 
plate  or  two  and  a  rusty,  overturned  tin  pan.  Here,  sitting 
on  a  convenient  box,  she  could  think  things  out  undis- 
turbed: Maurice,  and  his  lovely,  dying  Bride;  herself, 
orphaned  and  alone;  Johnny  Bennett,  indifferent  to  all 
this  oncoming  grief!  Probably  Maurice  was  worrying 
about  it  all  the  time!  How  long  would  the-Bride  live? 
Suddenly  she  remembered  her  mother's  age,  and  had  a 
revulsion  of  hope  for  Maurice.  Perhaps  his  wife  would  live 
to  be  as  old  as  mother?  "Why,  I  hadn't  thought  of  that! 
Well,  then,  she  will  live — let's  see:  thirty-nine  from  fifty 
leaves  eleven — yes;  the  Bride  will  live  eleven  years!" 
Why,  that  wasn't  so  terrible,  after  all.  "That's  as  long  as 
I  have  been  alive!"  Obviously  it  would  not  be  necessary 
to  take  care  of  Maurice  for  quite  a  good  while.  "I  guess," 
she  reflected,  "I'll  have  some  children  by  that  time. 
And  maybe  I'll  be  married,  too,  for  Maurice  won't  need 
me  for  eleven  years.  But  I  don't  know  what  I'd  do  with 
my  husband  then?"  She  frowned;  a  husband  would  be 
bothering,  if  she  had  to  go  and  live  with  Maurice.  "Oh, 
well,  probably  my  husband  will  be  so  old,  he'll  die  about 
the  time  Maurice's  wife  does."  She  had  meant  to  marry 
Johnny.  "But  I  won't.  He's  too  young.  He's  only  three 
years  older  'an  me.  He  might  live  too  long.  I  must  get 
an  old  husband.  I'll  tell  Johnny  about  it  to-morrow.  %  I'll 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  23 

wear  mourning,"  she  thought;  "a  long  veil!  It's  so  in- 
teresting. But  not  over  my  face — you  can't  see  through 
it,  and  it  isn't  sense  not  to  be  able  to  see."  (The  test  Edith 
applied  to  conduct  was  always,  "Is  it  sense?")  "  Of  course 
I  shall  feel  badly  about  my  husband;  but  I've  got  to  take 
care  of  Maurice.  .  .  .  Yes;  I  must  get  an  old  one,"  she 
thought.  "  I  must  get  one  as  old  as  the  Bride.  If  they'd 
only  waited,  the  Bride  could  have  married  my  husband !" 

But  this  line  of  thought  was  too  complicated;  and,  be- 
sides, she  had  so  entirely  cheered  up  that  she  practically 
forgot  death.  She  began  to  count  how  much  money  her 
mother  owed  her  for  eggs — which  reminded  her  to  look 
into  the  nests;  and  when,  in  spite  of  a  clucking  remon- 
strance, she  put  her  hand  under  a  feathery  breast  and 
touched  the  hot  smoothness  of  a  new-laid  egg,  she  felt 
perfectly  happy.  "I  guess  I'll  go  and  get  some  float- 
ing-island," she  thought.  "Oh,  I  hope  they  haven't  eaten  it 
all  up!" 

With  the  egg  in  her  hand,  she  rushed  back  to  the  dining 
room,  and  was  reassured  by  the  sight  of  the  big  glass 
dish,  still  all  creamy  yellow  and  fluffy  white. 

"Edith,"  Mrs.  Houghton  said,  "you  won't  mind  letting 
Maurice  and  Eleanor  have  your  room,  will  you,  dear?" 

"Is  her  name  'Eleanor'?  I  think  it's  a  perfectly  beau- 
tiful name!  No,  I'd  love  to  give  her  my  room!  Mother, 
she  won't  be  as  old  as  you  are  for  eleven  years,  and  that's 
as  long  as  I  have  been  alive.  So  I  won't  worry  about 
Maurice  just  yet.  Mother,  may  I  have  two  helpings? 
When  are  they  coming?" 

"They  haven't  been  asked  yet,"  her  father  said,  grimly. 
"I'm  not  going  to  concoct  a  letter,  Mary,  for  a  week.  Let 
'em  worry!  Maurice,  confound  him! — has  never  worried 
in  his  life.  Everything  rolls  off  him  like  water  off  a  duck's 
back.  It  will  do  him  good  to  chew  nails  for  a  while.  I 
wish  I  was  asleep!" 

"Why,  father!"  Edith  said,  aghast;  "I  don't  believe 
you  want  the  Bride!" 

"You're  a  very  intelligent  young  person,"  her  father 


24  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

said,  scratching  a  match  tinder  the  table  and  lighting  a 
cigar. 

"But,  my  dear,"  his  wife  said,  "has  it  occurred  to  you 
that  it  may  be  as  unpleasant  for  the  Bride  to  come,  as 
for  you  to  have  her?  Henry!  That's  the  third  since  break- 
fast!" 

*' Wrong  for  once,  Mrs.  Houghton.    It's  the  fourth." 

** I  want  the  Bride,"  said  Edith. 

Her  mother  laughed.  "Come  along,  honey,"  she  said, 
putting  her  hand  on  her  husband's  shoulder,  "and  tell 
me  what  to  say  to  her." 

"Say  she's  a  harpy,  and  tell  her  to  go  to  the — " 

"  Henry  1" 

"My  dear,  like  Mr.  F.'s  aunt,  'I  hate  a  fool.'  Oh,  111 
tell  you  what  to  say:  Say,  'Mr.  F.'s  aunt  will  send  her  a 
wedding  present.'  That's  friendly,  isn't  it?" 

"Better  not  be  too  literary  in  public,"  his  wife  cautioned 
him,  with  a  significant  glance  at  Edith,  who  was  all  ears. 

When,  laughing,  they  left  the  table,  their  daughter 
scraping  her  plate,  pondered  thus:  "I  suppose  Mr.  F.  is 
the  Bride's  father.  I  wonder  what  present  his  aunt  will 
give  her  ?  I  wonder  what  '  F '  stands  for — Frost  ?  Fuller  ? 
Father  and  mother  don't  want  the  Bride  to  come;  and 
mother  thinks  the  Bride  don't  want  to  come.  So  why 
should  they  ask  her  to  come  ?  And  why  should  she  come  ? 
I  wouldn't,"  Edith  said;  "but  I  hope  she  will,  for  I  love 
her!  And  oh,  I  hope  she'll  bring  her  harp!  I've  never 
seen  a  harpy.  But  people  are  funny,"  Edith  summed  it 
up;  "inviting  people  and  not  wanting  'em;  and  visiting 
'em  and  not  wanting  to.  It  ain't  sense,"  said  Edith. 


CHAPTER  IV 

IN  spite  of  his  declaration  of  indifference  to  the  feel- 
ings of  his  guardian,  the  married  boy  was  rapidly 
acquiring  that  capacity  for  "worry"  which  Mr.  Houghton 
desired  to  develop  in  him.  What  would  the  mail  bring  him 
from  Green  Hill?  It  brought  nothing  for  a  week — a  week 
in  which  he  experienced  certain  bad  moments  which  en- 
couraged "worry"  to  a  degree  that  made  his  face  dis- 
tinctly older  than  on  that  morning  under  the  locust  tree, 
when  he  had  been  married  for  fifty-four  minutes.  The 
first  of  these  educating  moments  came  on  Monday,  when 
he  went  to  see  his  tutor,  to  say  that  he  was — well,  he  was 
going  to  stop  grinding. 

"What?"  said  Mr.  Bradley,  puzzled. 

"I'm  going  to  chuck  college,  sir,"  Maurice  said,  and 
smiled  broadly,  with  the  rollicking  certainty  of  sympathy 
that  a  puppy  shows  when  approaching  an  elderly  mastiff. 

"Chuck  college!  What's  the  matter?"  the  mastiff  said, 
putting  a  protecting  hand  over  his  helpless  leg,  for  Mau- 
rice's restlessness — tramping  about,  his  hands  in  his 
pockets — was  a  menace  to  the  plastered  member. -v 

"I'm  going  into  business,"  the  youngster  said;*." I— < 
Well;  I've  got  married,  and — " 

"What!" 

" — so,  of  course,  I've  got  to  go  to  work." 

"See  here,  what  are  you  talking  about?" 

The  uneasy  color  sprang  into  Maurice's  face,  he  stood 
still,  and  the  grin  disappeared.  When  he  said  explicitly 
what  he  was  "talking  about,"  Mr.  Bradley 's  angry  con- 
sternation was  like  the  unexpected  snap  of  the  old  dog; 
it  made  Eleanor's  husband  feel  like  the  puppy.  "I  ought 
to  have  rounded  him  up,"  Mr.  Bradley  was  saying  to, 


26  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

himself;  "Houghton  will  hold  me  responsible!"  And  even 
while  making  unpleasant  remarks  to  the  bridegroom,  ho 
was  composing,  in  his  mind,  a  letter  to  Mr.  Houghton 
about  the  helplessness  incidental  to  a  broken  leg,  which 
accounted  for  his  failure  in  "rounding  up."  "/  couldn't 
get  on  to  his  trail!"  he  was  exonerating  himself. 

When  Maurice  retreated,  looking  like  a  schoolboy,  it 
took  him  a  perceptible  time  to  regain  his  sense  of  age  and 
pride  and  responsibility.  He  rushed  back  to  the  hotel — 
where  he  had  plunged  into  the  extravagance  of  the 
"bridal  suite," — to  pour  out  his  hurt  feelings  to  Eleanor, 
and  while  she  looked  at  him  in  one  of  her  lovely  silences  he 
railed  at  Bradley,  and  said  the  trouble  with  him  was  that 
he  was  sore  about  money!  "He  needn't  worry!  I'll  pay 
him/'  Maurice  said,  largely.  And  then  forgot  Bradley  in 
the  rapture  of  kissing  Eleanor's  hand.  .  "As  if  we  cared 
for  his  opinion!"  he  said. 

"We  don't  care!"  she  said,  joyously.  Her  misgivings 
had  vanished  like  dew  in  the  hot  sun.  Old  Mrs.  O'Brien 
had  done  her  part  in  dissipating  them.  While  Maurice 
,was  bearding  his  tutor,  Eleanor  had  gone  across  town  to 
her  laundress's,  to  ask  if  Mrs.  O'Brien  would  take  Bingo 
as  a  boarder —  •  "I  can't  have  him  at  the  hotel,"  she 
explained,  and  then  told  the  great  news: — "I'm  going  to 
.live  there,  because  I — I'm  married," — upon  which  she  was 
kissed,  and  blessed,  and  wept  over!  "The  gentleman  is  a 
( little  younger  than  I  am,"  she  confessed,  smiling;  and 
.Mrs.  O'Brien  said: 

"An'  what  difference  does  that  make?  Hell  only  be 
lovin'  ye  hotter  than  an  old  fellow  with  the  life'all  gone 
[ out  o'  him!". 

Eleanor  said,  laughing,  "Yes,  that's  true!"  and  cuddled 
.the  baby  grandson's  head  against  her  breast. 

"you'll  be  happy  as  a  queen!"  said  Mrs.  O'Brien;  and 
t"in  a  year  from  now  you'll  have  something  better  to  take 
care  of  than  Bingo — he'll  be  jealous!" 

But  she  hardly  heeded  Mrs.  O'Brien  and  her  joyful 
prophecy  of  Bingo's  approaching  jealousy;  having  taken 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  27 

the  dive,  she  had  risen  into  the  light  and  air,  and  now  she 
forgot  the  questioning  depths!  She  was  on  the  crest  of 
contented  achievement.  She  even  laughed  to  think  that 
she  had  ever  hesitated  about  marrying  Maurice.  Absurd ! 
As  if  the  few  years  between  them  were  of  the  slightest 
consequence!  Mrs.  O'Brien  was  right.  ...  So  she 
smoothed  over  Maurice's  first  bad  moment  with  an  indif- 
ference as  to  Mr.  Bradley's  opinion  which  was  most 
reassuring  to  him.  (Yet  once  in  a  while  she  thought  of 
Mr.  Houghton,  and  bit  her  lip.) 

The  next  bad  moment  neither  she  nor  Maurice  could 
dismiss  so  easily;  it  came  in  the  interview  with  her 
astounded  aunt,  whose  chief  concern  (when  she  read  the 
letter  which  Eleanor  had  left  on  her  pincushion)  was  lest 
the  Houghtons  would  think  she  had  inveigled  the  boy  into 
marrying  her  niece.  To  prove  that  she  had  not,  Mrs.  New- 
bolt  told  the  bride  and  groom  that  she  would  have  nothing 
more  to  do  with  Eleanor!  It  was  when  the  fifty-four 
minutes  had  lengthened  into  three  days  that  they  had 
gone,  after  supper,  to  see  her.  Eleanor,  supremely  satis- 
fied, with  no  doubts,  now  about  the  wisdom  of  what  she 
had  done,  was  nervous  only  as  to  the  effect  of  her  aunt's 
temper  upon  Maurice;  and  he,  full  of  a  bravado  of  indif- 
ference which  confessed  the  nervousness  it  denied,  was 
anxious  only  as  to  the  effect  of  the  inevitable  reproaches 
upon  Eleanor.  Their  five  horrid  minutes  of  waiting  in  the 
parlor  for  Mrs.  Newbolt's  ponderous  step  on  the  stairs, 
was  broken  by  Bingo's  dashing,  with  ear-piercing  barks, 
into  the  room ;  Eleanor  took  him  on  her  knee,  and  Mau- 
rice, giving  the  little  black  nose  a  kindly  squeeze,  looked 
around  in  pantomimic  horror  of  the  obese  upholstery,  and 
Rogers  groups  on  the  tops  of  bookcases  full  of  expensively 
bound  and  unread  classics. 

"How  have  you  stood  it?"  he  said  to  his  wife;  adding, 
under  his  breath,  "If  she's  nasty  to  you,  I'll  wring  her 
neck!" 

She  was  very  nasty.  "I'm  not  a  party  to  it,"  Mrs. 
Newbolt  said;  she  sat,  panting,  on  a  deeply  cushioned 


28  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

sofa,  and  her  wheezy  voice  came  through  quivering  double 
chins;  her  protruding  pale  eyes  snapped  with  anger.  "I 
shall  tell  you  exactly  what  I  think  of  you,  Eleanor,  for,  as 
my  dear  mother  used  to  say,  if  I  have  a  virtue  it  is  candor; 
I  think  you  are  a  puffect  fool.  As  for  Mr.  Curtis,  I  no 
more  thought  of  protectin'  him  than  I  would  think  of 
protectin'  a  baby  in  a  perambulator  from  its  nursemaid! 
Bingo  was  sick  at  his  stomach  this  mornin'.  You've  ruined 
the  boy's  life."  Eleanor  cringed,  but  Maurice  was  quite 
steady: 

"We  will  not  discuss  it,  if  you  please.  I  will  merely 
say  that  I  dragged  Eleanor  into  it ;  I  made  her  marry  me. 
She  refused  me  repeatedly.  Come,  Eleanor." 

He  rose,  but  Mrs.  Newbolt,  getting  heavily  on  to  her 
small  feet,  and  talking  all  the  time,  walked  over  to  the 
doorway  and  blocked  their  retreat.  "You  needn't  think 
I'll  do  anything  for  you!"  she  said  to  her  niece;  "I  shall 
write  to  Mr.  Houghton  and  tell  him  so.  I  shall  tell  him 
he  isn't  any  more  disgusted  with  this  business  than  I  am. 
And  you  can  take  Bingo  with  you!" 

"I  came  to  get  him,"  Eleanor  said,  faintly. 

"Come,  Eleanor,"  Maurice  said;  and  Mrs.  Newbolt, 
puffing  and  talking,  had  to  make  way  for  them.  As  they 
went  out  of  the  door  she  called,  angrily: 

"Here!  Stop!  I  want  to  give  Bingo  a  chocolate  drop!" 

They  didn't  stop.  In  the  street  on  the  way  to  Bingo's 
new  home,  Eleanor,  holding  her  little  dog  in  her  arms,  was 
blind  with  tears,  but  Maurice  effervesced  into  extravagant 
ridicule.  His  opinion  of  Mrs.  Newbolt,  her  parlor,  her 
ponderosity,  and  her  missing  g's,  exhausted  his  vocabulary 
of  opprobrious  adjectives;  but  Eleanor  was  silent,  just 
putting  up  a  furtive  handkerchief  to  wipe  her  eyes.  It  was 
dark,  and  he  drew  her  hand  through  his  arm  and  patted  it. 

"Don't  worry,  Star.  Uncle  Henry  is  white!  She  can 
write  to  him  all  she  wants  to!  I'm  betting  that  we'll  get 
an  invitation  to  come  right  up  to  Green  Hill." 

She  said  nothing,  but  he  knew  she  was  trembling.  As 
they  entered  Mrs.  O'Brien's  alley,  they  paused  where  it 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  29 

was  dark  enough,  halfway  between  gaslights,  for  a  man 
to  put  his  arm  around  his  wife's  waist  and  kiss  her.. 
(Bingo  growled.) 

"Eleanor!  I've  a  great  mind  to  go  back  to  that  hell- 
cat, and  tell  her  what  I  think  of  her!" 

"No.  Very  likely  she's  right.  I — I  have  injured  you. 
Oh,  Maurice,  If  I  have — " 

"You'd  have  injured  me  a  damn  sight  more  if  you 
hadn't  married  me!"  he  said. 

But  for  the  moment  her  certainty  that  her  marriage 
was  a  glorious  and  perfect  thing,  collapsed;  her  voice  was 
a  broken  whisper : 

"If  I've  spoiled  your  life — she  says  I  have; — I'll  .  .  . 
kill  myself,  Maurice."  She  spoke  with  a  sort  of  heavy 
calmness,  that  made  a  small,  cold  thrill  run  down  his 
back;  he  burst  into  passionate  protest: 

"All  I  am,  or  ever  can  be,  will  be  because  you  love 
me!  Darling,  when  you  say  things  like — like  what  you 
said,  I  feel  as  if  you  didn't  love  me — " 

Of  course  the  reproach  tautened  her  courage;  "I  do! 
I  do!  But—" 

"Then  never  say  such  a  wicked,  cruel  thing  again!" 

It  was  when  Bingo  had  been  left  with  Mrs.  O'Brien  that, 
on  their  way  back  to  the  hotel,  Maurice,  in  a  burst  of 
enthusiasm,  invited  his  third  bad  moment:  "I  am  going 
to  have  a  rattling  old  dinner  party  to  celebrate  your  escape 
from  the  hag!  How  about  Saturday  night?" 

She  protested  that  he  was  awfully  extravagant;  but 
she  cheered  up.  After  all,  what  difference  did  it  make  what 
a  person  like  Auntie  thought!  "But  who  will  you  ask?" 
she  said.  "I  suppose  you  don't  know  any  men  here? 
And  I  don't,  either." 

He  admitted  that  he  had  only  two  or  three  acquaint- 
ances in  Mercer — "but  I  have  a  lot  in  Philadelphia.  You 
sha'n't  live  on  a  desert  island,  Nelly!" 

"Ah,  but  I'd  like  to — with  you!  I  don't  want  anyone 
but  you,  in  the  world,"  she  said,  softly. 

He  thrilled  at  the  wonder  of  that:   she  would  be  con- 


3o  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

tented,  with  him, — on  a  desert  island!  Oh,  if  he  could 
only  always  be  enough  for  her!  He  vowed  to  himself,  in 
sudden  boyish  solemnity,  that  he  would  always  be  enough 
for  her.  Aloud;  he  said  he  thought  he  could  scratch  up 
two  or  three  fellows. 

Then  Eleanor's  apprehension  spoke:  "What  will  Mr. 
Houghton  say?" 

"Oh,  he's  all  right,"  Maurice  said,  resolutely  hiding  his 
own  apprehension.  He  could  hide  it,  but  he  could  not 
forget  it.  Even  while  arranging  for  his  dinner  party,  and 
plunging  into  the  expense  of  a  private  dining  room,  he 
was  thinking,  of  his  guardian;  "Will  he  kick?"  Aloud 
he  said,  "I've  asked  three  fellows,  and  you  ask  three 
girls." 

"I  don't  know  many  girls,"  she  said,  anxiously. 

"How  about  that  girl  you  spoke  to  on  the  street  yes- 
terday? (If  Uncle  Henry  could  only  see  her,  he'd  be  crazy 
about  her!)" 

"Rose  Ellis?  Well,  yes;  but  she's  rather  young.'* 

"Oh,  that's  all  right,"  Maurice  assured  her.  "(I  wish 
I  hadn't  told  him  she  is  older  than  I  am.  Trouble  with 
me  is,  I  always  plunk  out  the  truth !)  The  fellows  like  'em 
young,"  he  said.  Then  he  told  her  who  the  fellows  were: 
"I  don't  know  'em  very  well;  they're  just  boys;  not  in 
college.  Younger  than  I  am,  except  Tom  Morton.  Mort's 
twenty,  and  the  brainiest  man  I  know.  And  Hastings  has 
a  bag  of  jokes — well,  not  just  for  ladies,"  said  Maurice, 
grinning,  "and  you'll  like  Dave  Brown.  You  rake  in 
three  girls.  We'll  have  a  stunning  spread,  and  then  go  to 
the  theater."  He  caught  her  in  his  arms  and  romped 
around  the  room  with  her,  then  dropped  her  into  a  chair, 
and  watched  her  wiping  away  tears  of  helpless  laughter. 

"Yes — I'll  rake  in  the  girls!"  she  gasped. 

She  wasn't  very  successful  in  her  invitations.  "I  asked 
Rose,  but  I  had  to  ask  her  mother,  too,"  she  said;  "and 
one  of  the  teachers  at  the  Medfield  school." 

Maurice  looked  doubtful.  Rose  was  all  right;  but  the 
other  two?  "Aren't  they  somewhat  faded  flowers?" 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  31 

"They're  about  my  age,"  Eleanor  teased  him.  As  for 
Maurice,  he  thought  that  it  didn't  really  matter  about 
the  ladies,  faded  or  not;  they  were  Eleanor's  end  of  the 
shindy.  "Spring  chickens  are  Mort's  meat,"  he  said.  .  .  . 

The  three  rather  recent  acquaintances  who  were 
Maurice's  end  of  the  shindy,  had  all  gaped,  and  then 
howled,  when  told  that  the  dinner  was  to  celebrate  his 
marriage.  "I  got  spliced  kind  of  in  a  hurry,"  he  ex- 
plained; "so  I  couldn't  have  any  bachelor  blow-out;  but 
my — my — my  wife,  Mrs.  Curtis,  I  mean — and  I,  thought 
we'd  have  a  spree,  to  show  I  am  an  old  married  man." 

The  fellows,  after  the  first  amazement,  fell  on  him  with 
all  kinds  of  ragging :  Who  was  she  ?  Was  she  out  of  baby 
clothes?  Would  she  come  in  a  perambulator? 

"Shut  up!"  said  the  bridegroom,  hilariously.  He  went 
home  to  Eleanor  tingling  with  pride.  "I  want  you  to  be 
perfectly  stunning,  Star!  Of  course  you  always  are;  but 
rig  up  in  your  best  duds!  I'm  going  to  make  those  fel- 
lows cross-eyed  with  envy.  I  wonder  if  you  could  sing, 
just  once,  after  dinner  ?  I  want  them  to  hear  you !  (Mr. 
Houghton  will  love  her  voice!)" 

Eleanor — who  had  stopped  counting  the  minutes  of 
married  life  now,  for,  this  being  the  sixth  day  of  bliss,  the 
arithmetic  was  too  much  for  her — was  as  excited  about 
the  dinner  as  he  was.  Yet,  like  him,  under  the  excite- 
ment, was  a  little  tremor:  "They  will  be  angry  because — • 
because  we  eloped!"  Any  other  reason  for  anger  she 
would  not  formulate.  Sometimes  her  anxiety  was  audi- 
ble: "Do  you  suppose  Auntie  has  written  to  Mr.  Hough- 
ton?"  And  again:  "What  will  he  say?"  Maurice  always 
replied,  with  exuberant  indifference,  that  he  didn't  know, 
and  he  didn't  care! 

"/  care,  if  he  is  horrid  to  you!"  Eleanor  said.  "He'll 
probably  say  it  was  wicked  to  elope?" 

Mr.  Houghton  continued  to  say  nothing;  and  the 
"care"  Maurice  denied,  dogged  all  his  busy  interest  in 
his  dinner — for  which  he  had  made  the  plans,  as  Eleanor, 
until  the  term  ended,  was  obliged  to  go  out  to  Medfield 


'32  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

to  give  her  music  lessons;  besides,  "planning"  was  not' 
her  forte!  But  in  the  thrill  of  excitement  about  the 
dinner  and  in  the  mounting  adventure  of  being  happy, 
she  was  able  to  forget  her  fear  that  Mr.  Houghton  might 
be  "horrid"  to  Maurice.  If  the  Houghtons  didn't  like  an 
elopement,  it  would  mean  that  they  had  no  romance  in 
them!  She  was  absorbed  in  her  ardent  innocent  purpose 
of  "impressing"  Maurice's  friends,  not  from  vanity,  but 
because  she  wanted  to  please  him.  As  she  dressed  that 
evening,  all  her  self -distrust  vanished,  and  she  smiled  at 
herself  in  the  mirror  for  sheer  delight,  for  his  sake,  in  her 
dark,  shining  eyes,  and  the  red  loveliness  of  her  full  lip. 
In  this  wholly  new  experience  of  feeling,  not  only  happy, 
but  important, — she  forgot  Mrs.  Newbolt,  sailing  angrily 
for  Europe  that  very  day,  and  was  not  even  anxious  about 
the  Houghtons!  After  all,  what  difference  did  it  make 
what  such  people  thought  of  elopements?  "Fuddy- 
duddies!"  she  said  to  herself,  using  Maurice's  slang  with 
an  eager  sense  of  being  just  as  young  as  he  was. 

When  the  guests  arrived  and  they  all  filed  into  the 
private  and  very  expensive  dining  room,  Eleanor  looked 
indeed  quite  "stunning";  her  shyness  did  not  seem  shy- 
ness, but  only  a  sort  of  proud  beauty  of  silence,  which 
might  cover  Heaven  knows  what  deeps  of  passion  and  of 
knowledge!  Little  Rose  was  glowing  and  simpering,  and 
the  two  older  ladies  were  giving  each  other  significant 
glances.  Maurice's  "fellows,"  shepherded  by  their  host, 
shambled  speechlessly  along  in  the  background.  The 
instant  that  they  saw  the  bride  they  had  fallen  into  dumb- 
ness. Brown  said,  under  his  breath  to  Hastings,  "Gosh!"| 
And  Hastings  gave  Morton  a  thrust  in  the  ribs,  which 
Morton's  dignity  refused  to  notice;  later,  when  he  was  at 
Eleanor's  right,  the  flattery  of  her  eagerly  attentive 
silence  instantly  won  him.  Maurice  had  so  expatiated 
to  her  upon  Morton's  brains,  that  she  was  really  in  awe  of 
him — of  which,  of  course,  Morton  was  quite  aware !  It  was 
so  exhilarating  to  his  twenty  years  that  he  gave  his  host  a ! 
look  of  admiring  congratulation — and  Maurice's  pride^ 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  33 

rose  high! — then  fell;  for,  somehow,  his  dinner  wouldn't 
"go"!  He  watched  the  younger  men  turn  frankly  rude 
shoulders  to  the  older  ladies,  who  did  their  best  to  be 
agreeable.  He  caught  stray  words:  Eleanor's  efforts  to 
talk  as  Rose  talked — Rose's  dog  was  "perfectly  sweet," 
but  "simply  awful";  then  a  dog  story;  "wasn't  that 
killing?"  And  Eleanor:  she  once  had  a  cat — "perfectly 
frightfully  cunning!"  said  Eleanor,  stumbling  among  the 
adverbs  of  adolescence. 

At  Rose's  story  the  young  men  roared,  but  Eleanor's  cat 
awoke  no  interest.  Then  one  of  the  "faded  flowers" 
spoke  to  Brown,  who  said,  vaguely,  "What,  ma'am?" 

The   other   lady   was  murmuring   in   Maurice's   earr 

"What  is  your  college?" 

Maurice  trying  to  get  Rose's  eye,  so  that  he  might 
talk  to  her  and  give  the  boys  a  chance  to  do  their  duty, 
said,  distractedly,  "Princeton.  Say,  Hastings!  Tell  Mrs. 
Ellis  about  the  miner  who  lost  his  shirt — " 

Mrs.  Ellis  looked  patient,  and  Hastings,  dropping  into 
agonized  shyness,  said,  "Oh,  I  can't  tell  stories!" 

After  that,  except  for  Morton's  philosophical  outpour* 
ings  to  the  listening  Eleanor,  most  of  the  dreary  occasion 
of  eating  poor  food,  served  by  a  waiter  who  put  his  thumb 
into  things,  was  given  up  to  the  stifled  laughter  of  the  girl 
and  boys,  and  to  conversation  between  the  other  two- 
guests,  who  were  properly  arch  because  of  the  occasion, 
but  disappointed  in  their  dinner,  and  anxious  to  shake 
their  heads  and  lift  shocked  hands  as  soon  as  they  could 
get  out  of  their  hostess's  sight. 

For  Maurice,  the  whole  endless  hour  was  a  seesaw  be- 
tween the  past  and  the  present,  between  his  new  dignity 
and  his  old  irresponsibility.  He  tried — at  first  with 
boisterous  familiarity,  then  with  ponderous  condescen- 
sion— to  draw  his  friends  out.  What  would  Eleanor 
think  of  them — the  idiots!  And  what  would  she  think 
of  him,  for  having  such  asinine  friends?  He  hoped  Mort 
was  showing  his  brains  to  her!  He  mentally  cursed 
Hastings  because  he  did  not  produce  his  jokes;  as  for 


34  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

Brown,  he  was  a  lad.  "I  oughtn't  to  have  asked  him! 
What  will  Eleanor  think  of  him!"  He  was  thankful  when 
dessert  came  and  the  boys  stopped  their  fatuous  mur- 
murings  to  little  Rose,  to  gorge  themselves  with  ice 
cream.  He  talked  loudly  to  cover  up  their  silence,  and 
glanced  constantly  at  his  watch,  in  the  hope  that  it  was 
time  to  pack  'em  all  off  to  the  theater!  Yet,  even  with 
his  acute  discomfort,  he  had  moments  of  pride — for  there 
was  Eleanor  sitting  at  the  head  of  the  table,  silent  and 
handsome,  and  making  old  Mort  crazy  about  her!  In 
spite  of  those  asses  of  boys,  he  was  very  proud.  He  had 
simply  made  a  mistake  in  inviting  Hastings  and  Brown; 
"Tom  Morton's  all  right,"  he  told  himself;  "but,  great 
Scott!  how  young  those  other  two  are!" 

When  the  evening  was  over  (the  theater  part  of  it  was 
a  success,  for  the  play  was  good,  and  Maurice  had  nearly 
bankrupted  himself  on  a  box),  and  he  and  Eleanor  were 
alone,  he  drew  her  down  on  the  little  sofa  of  their  sitting 
room,  and  worshiped.  "Oh,  Star,  how  wonderful  you  are !" 

"Did  I  do  everything  right?"  She  was  breathless  with 
happiness.  "I  tried  so  hard!  But  I  can't  talk.  I  never 
know  what  to  say." 

"You  were  perfect!  And  they  were  all  such  idiots — 
except  Mort.  Mort  told  me  you  were  very  temperamental, 
and  had  a  wonderful  mind.  I  said, '  You  bet  she  has !'  The 
old  ladies  were  pills." 

"Oh,  Maurice,  you  goose!  .  .  .  Maurice,  what  will  Mr. 
Houghton  say?" 

"He'll  say,  'Bless  you,  my  children!'  Nelly,  what  was 
the  matter  with  the  dinner?" 

"Matter?  Why,  it  was  perfect!  It  was"--  she  made 
a  dash  for  some  of  his  own  words — "simply  corking! 
Though  perhaps  Rose  was  a  little  too  young  for  it.  Didn't 
you  enjoy  it?"  she  demanded,  astonished. 

He  said  that  if  she  enjoyed  it,  that  was  all  he  cared 
about!  He  didn't  tell  her — perhaps  he  didn't  know  it 
himself — that  his  own  lack  of  enjoyment  was  due  to 
his  inarticulate  consciousness  that  he  had  not  belonged 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  35 

anywhere  at  that  dinner  table.  He  was  too  old — and  he 
was  too  young.  The  ladies  talked  down  to  him,  and  Brown 
and  Hastings  were  polite  to  him.  "Damn  'em,  polite! 
Well,"  he  thought,  'course,  they  know  that  a  man  in  my 
position  isn't  in  their  class.  But —  "  After  a  while  he  found 
himself  thinking:  "Those  hags  Eleanor  raked  in  had  no 
manners.  Talked  to  me  about  my  'exams'!  I'm  glad  I 
snubbed  the  old  one.  ...  I  don't  think  Rose  was  too 
young,"  he  said,  aloud.  "Oh,  Star,  you  are  wonderful!" 

And  she,  letting  her  hair  fall  cloudlike  over  her  shoul- 
ders, silently  held  out  her  arms  to  him.  Instantly  his 
third  bad  moment  vanished. 

But  a  fourth  was  on  its  way;  even  as  he  kissed  that 
white  shoulder,  he  was  thinking  of  the  letter  which  must 
certainly  come  from  Mr.  Houghton  in  a  day  or  two. 
"What  will  he  get  off?"  he  asked  himself;  "probably  old 
Brad  and  Mrs.  Newbolt  have  fed  oats  to  him,  so  he'll 
kick — but  what  do  I  care  ?  Not  a  hoot !"  Thus  encouraging 
himself,  he  encouraged  Eleanor: 

"Don't  worry!  Uncle  Henry  11  write  and  beg  me  to 
bring  you  up  to  Green  Hill." 

The  fifty-four  minutes  of  married  life  had  stretched  into 
eight  days,  and  Maurice  had  chewed  the  educating  nails 
of  worry  pretty  thoroughly  before  that  "begging"  letter 
from  Henry  Houghton  arrived.  There  was  an  inclosure 
in  it  from  Mrs.  Houghton,  and  the  young  man,  down  in 
the  dark  lobby  of  the  hotel,  with  his  heart  in  his  mouth, 
read  what  both  old  friends  had  to  say — then  rushed  up- 
stairs, two  steps  at  a  time,  to  make  his  triumphant 
announcement  to  his  wife: 

"What  did  I  tell  you?  Uncle  Henry's  whiter  He  gave 
her  a  hug ;  then,  plugging  his  pipe  full  of  tobacco,  handed 
her  the  letters,  and  sat  down  to  watch  the  effect  of  them 
upon  her;  there  was  no  more  "worry"  for  Maurice!  But 
Eleanor,  standing  by  the  window  silhouetted  against  the 
yellow  twilight,  caught  her  full  lower  lip  between  her 
teeth  as  she  read: 


36~  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

"Of  course,"  Mr.  Houghton  wrote — (it  had  taken  him 
the  week  he  had  threatened  to  "concoct"  his  letter,  which 
he  asked  his  wife  if  he  might  not  sign  "Mr.  F.'s  aunt." 
"I  bet  she  doesn't  know  her  Dickens;  it  won't  convey 
anything  to  her,"  he  begged;  "I'll  cut  out  two  cigars  a 
day  if  you'll  let  me  do  it?"  She  would  not  let  him,  so  the 
letter  was  perfectly  decorous.) —  "Of  course  it  was  not 
the  proper  way  to  treat  an  old  friend,  and  marriage  is 
too  serious  a  business  to  be  entered  into  in  this  way.  Also 
I  am  sorry  that  there  is  any  difference  in  age  between  you 
and  your  wife.  But  that  is  all  in  the  past,  and  Mrs. 
Houghton  and  I  wish  you  every  happiness.  We  are 
looking  forward  to  seeing  you  next  month."  .  .  .  ("Ex- 
actly," he  explained  to  his  Mary,  "as  I  look  forward  to 
going  to  the  dentist's.  You  tell  'em  so.") 

As  Mrs.  Houghton  declined  to  "tell  'em,"  Eleanor, 
reading  the  friendly  words,  was  able  to  say,  "I  don't 
think  he's  angry?" 

"'Course  not!"  said  Maurice. 

Then  she  opened  the  other  letter. 

MY  DEAR  BOY, — I  wish  you  hadn't  got  married  in  such  a 
hurry;  Edith  is  dreadfully  disappointed  not  to  have  had  the 
chance  "to  be  your  bridesmaid"!  You  must  give  us  an  oppor- 
tunity soon  to  know  your  wife.  Of  course  you  must  both  come 
to  Green  Hill  as  usual,  for  your  vacation. 

"She  is  furious,"  said  Eleanor.  "She  thinks  it's  dreadful 
to  "have  eloped."  She  had  turned  away  from  him,  and  was 
looking  out  across  the  slow  current  of  the  river  at  the  fur- 
naces on  the  opposite  bank — it  was  the  same  river,  that, 
ten  days  ago,  had  run  sparkling  and  lisping  over  brown 
depths  and  sunny  shallows  past  their  meadow.  Her  face 
lightened  and  darkened  as  the  sheeting  violet  and  orange 
ilames  from  the  great  smokestacks  roared  out  against  the 
sky,  and  fell,  and  rose  again.  The  beauty  of  them  caught 
Maurice's  eye,  and  he  really  did  not  notice  what  she  was 
saying,  until  he  caught  the  words:  "Mrs.  Houghton's 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  37 

like  Auntie — she  thinks  I've  injured  you — "  Before  he 
could  get  on  his  feet  to  go  and  take  her  in  his  arms,  and 
deny  that  preposterous  word,  she  turned  abruptly  and 
came  and  sat  on  his  knee;  then,  with  a  sort  of  sob,  let 
herself  sink  against  his  breast.  "But  oh,  I  did  so  want  to 
be  happy! — and  you  made  me  do  it." 

He  gave  her  a  quick  squeeze,  and  chuckled:  "You  bet 
I  made  you!"  he  said;  he  pushed  her  gently  to  her  feet, 
and  got  up  and  walked  about  the  room,  his  hands  in  his 
pockets.  "As  for  Mrs.  Houghton,  you'll  love  her.  She 
never  fusses;  she  just  says,  'Consider  the  stars.'  I  do 
hope  you'll  like  them,  Eleanor,"  he  ended,  anxiously.  He 
was  still  in  that  state  of  mind  where  the  lover  hopes  that 
his  beloved  will  approve  of  his  friends.  Later  on,  when  he 
and  she  love  each  other  more,  and  so  are  more  nearly  one, 
he  hopes  that  his  friends  will  approve  of  his  beloved,  even 
as  he  used  to  be  anxious  that  they  should  approve  of  him. 
"I  do  awfully  want  you  to  like  'em  at  Green  Hill!  We'll 
go  the  minute  your  school  closes." 

"Must  we?"  she  said,  nervously. 

"I'm  afraid  we've  got  to,"  he  said;  "you  see>,  I  must 
find  out  about  ways  and  means.  And  Edith  would  be 
furious  if  we  didn't  come,"  he  ended,  chuckling. 

"Is  she  nice?" 

"Why,  yes,"  he  said;  "she's  just  a  child,  of  course. 
Only  eleven.  But  she  and  I  have  great  times.  We  have 
a  hut  on  the  mountain;  we  go  up  for  a  day,  and  Edith 
cooks  things.  She's  a  bully  cook.  Her  beloved  Johnny 
Bennett  tags  on  behind." 

"But  do  you  like  to  be  with  a  child?"  she  said,  surprised. 

"Oh,  she's  got  a  lot  of  sense.  Say,  Nelly,  I  have  an  idea. 
While  we  are  at  Green  Hill,  let's  camp  out  up  there?" 

"You  don't  mean  stay  all  night?"  she  said,  flinching. 
"Oh,  wouldn't  it  be  very  uncomfortable?  I — I  hate  the 
dark." 

The  sweet  foolishness  of  it  enchanted  him  (baby  love 
feeds  on  pap!)  "Pitch  dark,"  he  teased,  "and  lions  and 
tigers  roaring  around,  and  snakes — " 


38  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

"Of  course  I'll  go,  if  you  want  me  to,"  she  said,  simply, 
but  with  a  real  sinking  of  the  heart. 

"Edith  adores  it,"  he  said.  "Speaking  of  Edith,  I  must 
tell  you  something  so  funny.  Last  summer  I  was  at 
Green  Hill,  and  one  night  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Houghton  were 
away,  and  there  was  a  storm.  Gee,  I  never  saw  such  a 
storm  in  my  life!  Edith  has  no  more  nerves  than  a  tree, 
but  even  she  was  scared.  Well,  I  was  scared  myself." 

He  had  stretched  himself  out  on  the  sofa,  and  she  was 
kneeling  beside  him,  her  eyes  worshiping  him.  "7  would 
have  been  scared  to  death,"  she  confessed. 

"Well,  /  was!"  he  said.  "The  tornado — it  was  just 
about  that ! — burst  on  to  us,  and  nearly  blew  the  house 
off  the  hill — and  such  an  infernal  bellowing,  and  hellish 
green  lightning,  you  never  saw !  Well,  I  was  just  thinking 
about  Buster — her  father  calls  her  Buster;  and  wondering 
whether  she  was  scared,  when  in  she  rushed,  in  her  night- 
gown. She  made  a  running  jump  for  my  bed,  dived  into 
it,  grabbed  me,  and  hugged  me  so  I  was  'most  suffocated, 
and  screamed  into  my  ear,  'There's  a  storm!' — as  if  I 
hadn't  noticed  it.  I  said — I  could  hardly  make  myself 
heard  in  the  racket — I  yelled,  'Don't  you  think  you'd 
better  go  back  to  your  own  room?  I'll  come  and  sit  there 
with  you.'  And  she  yelled,  'I'm  going  to  stay  here.'  So 
she  stayed." 

"I  think  she  was  a  little  old  for  that  sort  of  thing," 
Eleanor  said,  coldly. 

He  gave  a  shout  of  laughter.  "  Eleanor !  Do  you  mean 
to  tell  me  you  don't  see  how  awfully  funny  it  was?  The 
little  thing  hugged  me  with  all  her  might  until  the  storm 
blew  over.  Then  she  said,  calmly:  'It's  cold.  I'll  stay 
here.  You  can  go  and  get  in  my  bed  if  you  want  to.'" 

Eleanor  gave  a  little  shrug,  then  rose  and  went  over  to 
the  window.  ' '  Oh  yes,  it  was  funny ;  but  I  think  she  must  be 
a  rather  pert  little  thing.  I  don't  want  to  go  to  Green  Hill. ' ' 

Maurice  looked  worried.  "I  hate  to  urge  anything 
you  don't  like,  Nelly;  but  I  really  do  feel  we  ought  to 
accept  their  invitation?  And  you'll  like  them!  Of  course 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  39 

they're  not  In  your  class.  Nobody  is!  I  mean  they're 
old,  and  sort  of  commonplace.  But  we  can  go  and  live  in 
the  woods  most  of  the  time,  and  get  away  from  them, — 
except  little  Skeezics.  We'll  take  her  along.  You'll  love 
having  her;  she's  lots  of  fun.  You  see,  I've  got  to  go  to 
Green  Hill,  because  I  must  get  in  touch  with  Uncle 
Henry;  I've  got  to  find  out  about  our  income!"  he  ex- 
plained, with  a  broad  grin. 

"I  should  think  Edith  would  bore  you,"  she  said.  Her 
voice  was  so  sharply  irritated  that  Maurice  looked  at  her, 
open-mouthed;  he  was  too  bewildered  to  speak. 

"Why,  Eleanor,"  he  faltered;  "why  are  you — on  your 
ear?  Was  it  what  I  told  you  about  Edith?  You  didn't 
think  that  she  wasn't  proper?" 

"  No !  Of  course  not !  It  wasn't  that."  She  came  quickly 
and  knelt  beside  him.  "  Of  course  it  wasn't  that!  It  was — " 
She  could  not  say  what  it  was ;  perhaps  she  did  not  quite 
know  that  her  annoyance  at  Maurice's  delight  in  Edith 
was  the  inarticulate  pain  of  recognizing  that  he  might 
have  more  in  common  with  a  child,  eight  years  his  junior, 
than  he  could  have  with  a  woman  twenty  years  his  senior. 
Her  eyes  were  suddenly  bright  with  frightened  tears. 
In  a  whisper,  that  fear  which,  in  these  days  of  complete 
belief  in  her  own  happiness,  she  had  forgotten  even  to 
deny,  came  back:  "What  really  upset  me  was  the  letters. 
The  Houghtons  are  angry  because  I  am —  "  she  flinched, 
and  would  not  utter  the  final  word  which  was  the  hidden 
reason  of  her  annoyance  at  Edith ;  so,  instead  of  uttering 
it,  she  said,  "because  we  eloped." 

As  for  Maurice,  he  rallied  her,  and  pretended  to  scold 
her,  and  tasted  her  tears  salt  upon  his  lips.  He  felt  very 
old  and  protecting. 

"Nonsense!"  he  said.      "Mrs.   Houghton  and  Uncle 
Henry  are  old,  and  of  course  they  can't  understand  love. ; 
But  the  romance  of  it  will  touch  them!" 

And  again  Love  cast  out  Fear;  Eleanor,  her  face  hidden 
on  his  shoulder,  told  herself  that  it  really  didn't  matter 
what  the  Houghtons  thought  of  ...  an  elopement. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  cloud  of  their  first  difference  had  blown  over 
almost  before  they  felt  its  shadow,  and  the  sky  of  love 
was  as  clear  as  the  lucid  beryl  of  the  summer  night.  Yet 
even  the  passing  shadow  of  the  cloud  kept  both  the  woman 
and  the  boy  repentant  and  a  little  frightened ;  he,  because 
he  thought  he  had  offended  her  by  some  lack  of  delicacy ; 
she,  because  she  thought  she  had  shocked  him  by  what 
he  might  think  was  harshness  to  a  child.  Even  a  week 
afterward,  as  they  journeyed  up  to  Green  Hill  in  a  dusty 
accommodation  train,  there  was  an  uneasy  memory  of 
that  cloud — black  with  Maurice's  dullness,  and  livid  with 
the  zigzag  flash  of  Eleanor's  irritation — and  then  the  lit- 
tle shower  of  tears!  .  .  .  What  had  brought  the  cloud? 
Would  it  ever  return?  ...  As  for  those  twenty  dividing 
years,  they  never  thought  of  them! 

In  the  train  they  held  each  other's  hands  under  the 
cover  of  a  newspaper;  and  sometimes  Maurice's  foot 
touched  hers,  and  then  they  looked  at  each  other,  and 
smiled — but  each  was  wondering:  his  wonder  was,  "What 
made  her  offended  at  Edith ? "  And  hers  was,  "How  can  he 
like  to  be  with  an  eleven-year-old  child!"  Their  talk, 
however,  confessed  no  wonderings !  It  was  the  happy  com- 
monplace of  companionship:  Mrs.  Newbolt  and  her 
departure  for  Europe;  would  Mrs.  O'Brien  be  good  to 
Bingo?  what  Maurice's  business  should  be.  Then  Maurice 
yawned,  and  said  he  was  glad  that  the  commencement 
exercises  at  Fern  Hill  were  over;  and  she  said  she  was 
glad,  too;  she  had  danced,  she  said,  until  she  had  a  pain 
in  her  side!  After  which  he  read  his  paper,  and  she 
looked  out  of  the  window  at  the  flying  landscape.  Sud- 
denly she  said: 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  4r 

"That  girl  you  danced  with  last  night — you  danced 
with  her  three  times!"  she  said,  with  sweet  reproach — 
"didn't  know  we  were  married! — she  wasn't  a  Fern  Hill 
girl.  She  told  me  she  had  been  dancing  with  my 
'nephew.'" 

"Did  she?  .  .  .  Eleanor,  look  at  that  elm  tree,  standing 
all  alone  in  the  field,  like — like  a  wineglass  full  of  summer !" 

For  a  moment  she  didn't  understand  his  readiness  to 
change  the  subject — then  she  had  a  flash  of  instinct:  "I 
believe  she  said  the  same  thing  to  you!" 

"Oh,  she  got  off  some  fool  thing."  The  annoyance  in  his 
voice  was  like  a  rapier  thrust  of  certainty. 

"I  knew  it!   But  I  don't  care.   Why  should  I  care?" 

"You  shouldn't.  Besides,  it  was  only  funny.  I  was 
tremendously  amused." 

She  turned  and  looked  out  of  the  window. 

Maurice  lifted  the  paper  which  had  been  such  a  con- 
venient shelter  for  clasping  hands,  and  seemed  to  read  for 
a  while.  Then  he  said,  abruptly,  "I  only  thought  it  was 
funny  for  her  to  make  such  a  mistake." 

She  was  silent. 

"Eleanor,  don't  be — that  way!" 

"What  'way'?  You  mean" — her  voice  trembled — 
"feel  hurt  to  have  you  dance  three  times,  with  a  girl  who 
said  an  uncomplimentary  thing  about  me?" 

"But  it  wasn't  uncomplimentary!  It  was  just  a  silly 
mistake  anyone  might  make —  He  stopped  abruptly, 
for  there  were  tears  in  her  eyes — and  instantly  his  tender- 
ness infolded  her  like  sunshine.  But  even  while  he  was 
making  her  talk  of  other  things — the  heat,  or  the  land- 
scape— he  was  a  little  preoccupied;  he  was  trying  to 
explain  this  tiny,  ridiculous,  lovely  unreasonableness,  by 
tracking  it  back  to  some  failure  of  sensitiveness  on  his  own 
part.  It  occurred  to  him  that  he  could  do  this  better  if 
he  were  by  himself — not  sitting  beside  her,  faintly  con- 
scious of  her  tenseness.  So  he  said,  abruptly,  "Star,  if 
you  don't  mind,  I'll  go  and  have  a  smoke." 

"All  right,"  she  said;   "give  me  the  paper:   I  haven't 


42  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

,  looked  at  the  news  for  days!"  She  was  trembling  a  little. 
The  mistake  of  a  silly  girl  had  had,  at  first,  no  significance, 
it  was  just,  as  it  always  is  to  the  newly  married  woman, 
amusing  to  be  supposed  not  to  be  married!  But  that 
Maurice,  knowing  of  the  mistake,  had  not  mentioned  its 
absurdity,  woke  an  uneasy  consciousness  that  he  had 
thought  it  might  annoy  her!  Why  should  it  annoy  her? — 
unless  the  reason  of  the  mistake  was  as  obvious  to  him  as 
to  the  girl? — whom  he  had  found  attractive  enough  to 
dance  with  three  times !  It  was  as  if  a  careless  hand  had 
pushed  open  a  closed  door,  and  given  Maurice's  wife  a 
glimpse  of  a  dark  landscape,  the  very  existence  of  which 
her  love  had  so  vehemently  denied. 

An  hour  later,  however,  when  Maurice  returned,  she 
was  serene  again.  Love  had  closed  the  door — bolted  it! 
barred  it!  and  the  gray  landscape  of  dividing  years  was 
forgotten.  And  as  her  face  had  cleared,  so  had  his.  He  had 
explained  her  annoyance  by  calling  himself  a  clod!  "She 
hated  not  to  be  thought  married — of  course!"  What  a 
brute  he  was  not  to  have  recognized  the  subtle  loveliness 
of  a  sensitiveness  like  that !  He  wanted  to  tell  her  so,  but 
he  could  only  push  the  newspaper  toward  her  and  slip 
his  hand  under  it  to  feel  for  hers — which  he  clutched  and 
gripped  so  hard  that  her  rings  cut  into  the  flesh.  She 
laughed,  and  opened  her  pocketbook  and  showed  him  the 
little  circle  of  grass  which  he  had  slipped  over  her  wedding 
ring  after  fifty-four  minutes  of  married  life.  At  which  his 
whole  face  radiated.  It  was  as  if,  through  those  gay  blue 
eyes  of  his,  he  poured  pure  joy  from  his  heart  into  hers. 

"Be  careful,"  he  threatened:  "one  minute  more,  and 
I'll  kiss  you  right  here,  before  people!" 

She  snapped  her  purse  shut  in  pretended  terror,  but 
after  that  they  held  hands  under  the  newspaper,  and  were 
perfectly  happy — until  the  moment  came  of  meeting  the 
Houghtons  on  the  platform  at  the  junction;  then  happi- 
ness gave  way  to  embarrassment. 

Henry  Houghton,  obliged  to  throw  away  a  half -smoked 
cigar,  and,  saying  under  his  breath  that  he  wished  he  was 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  43 

asleep,  was  cross;  but  his  wife  was  pleasantly  common- 
place. She  kissed  the  bride,  and  the  groom,  too,  and  said 
that  Edith  was  in  a  great  state  of  excitement  about  them ! 
Then  she  condoled  with  Eleanor  about  the  heat,  and  told 
Maurice  there  were  cinders  on  his  hat.  But  not  even  her 
careful  matter-of-courseness  could  make  the  moment  any- 
thing but  awkward.  In  the  four-mile  drive  to  Green  Hill 
— during  which  Eleanor  said  she  hoped  old  Lion  wouldn't 
run  away; — the  young  husband  seemed  to  grow  younger 
and  younger;  and  his  wife,  in  her  effort  to  talk  to  Mr. 
Houghton,  seemed  to  grow  older  and  older.  .  .  . 

"If  I  didn't  happen  to  know  she  was  a  fool,"  Henry 
Houghton  said  to  his  Mary,  washing  his  hands  before  going 
down  to  supper,  "I  should  think  she  was  quite  a  nice 
woman — she's  so  good  looking." 

"Henry!  At  your  time  of  life,  are  you  deciding  a  wom- 
an's 'niceness'  by  her  looks?" 

"But  tell  her  she  mustn't  bore  him,"  he  said,  ignoring 
the  rebuke.  "Tell  her  that  when  it  comes  to  wives,  every 
husband  on  earth  is  Mr.  F.'s  aunt — he  'hates  a  fool'!" 

"Why  not  tell  her  yourself?"  she  said:  then  she  sighed; 
"why  did  she  do  it?" 

"She  did  it,"  he  instructed  her,  "because  the  flattery  of 
a  boy's  lovemaking  went  to  her  head.  I  have  an  idea 
that  she  was  hungry  for  happiness — so  it  was  champagne 
on  an  empty  stomach.  Think  of  the  starvation  dullness  of 
living  with  that  Newbolt  female,  who  drops  her  g's  all  over 
the  floor!  Edith  likes  her,"  he  added. 

"Oh,  Edith!"  said  Edith's  mother,  with  a  shrug;  "well, 
if  you  can  explain  Eleanor,  perhaps  you  can  explain 
Maurice?" 

"That's  easy;  anything  in  petticoats  will  answer  as  a 
peg  for  a  man  (we  are  the  idealizing  sex)  to  hang  his 
heart  on.  Then,  there's  her  music — and  her  pathos.  For 
she  is  pathetic,  Kit?" 

But  Mary  Houghton  shook  her  head:  "It  is  Maurice 
who  is  pathetic — my  poor  Maurice!"  .  .  . 

When  they  went  down  to  the  east  porch,  with  its  great 
4 


44  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

white  columns,  and  its  broad  steps  leading  into  Mrs. 
Houghton's  gay  and  fragrant  garden,  they  found  Edith 
there  before  them — sitting  on  the  top  step,  her  arms 
around  her  knees,  her  worshiping  eyes  fixed  on  the  Bride. 
Edith  had  nothing  to  say;  it  was  enough  to  look  at  the 
"bridal  couple,"  as  the  kitchen  had  named  them.  When 
her  father  and  mother  appeared,  she  did  manage,  in  the 
momentary  bustle  of  rising  and  offering  chairs,  to  say 
to  Maurice: 

"Oh,  isn't  she  lovely!  Oh,  Maurice,  let's  go  out  behind 
the  barn  after  supper  and  talk!  Maurice,  did  she  bring 
her  harp?  I  want  to  see  her  play  on  it!  I  saw  her  wed- 
ding ring,"  she  ended,  in  an  ecstatic  whisper. 

"She  doesn't  play  on  the  harp;  she  plays  on  the  piano. 
Did  you  twig  her  hair?"  Maurice  whispered  back;  "it's 
like  black  down!" 

Edith  was  speechless  with  adoration;  she  wished,  pas- 
sionately, that  Maurice  would  put  his  coat  down  for  the 
Bride  to  step  on,  like  Sir  Walter  Raleigh!  "for  she  is  a 
Queen!"  Edith  thought:  then  Maurice  pulled  one  of  her 
pigtails  and  she  kicked  him — and  after  that  she  was  for- 
gotten, for  the  grown  people  began  to  talk,  and  say  it 
had  been  a  hot  day,  and  that  the  strawberries  needed  rain 
— but  Eleanor  hoped  there  wouldn't  be  a  thunderstorm. 

"They  have  to  say  things,  I  suppose,"  Edith  reflected, 
patiently:  "but  after  supper,  Maurice  and  I  will  talk." 
So  she  bore  with  her  father  and  mother,  who  certainly 
tried  to  be  conversational.  The  Bride,  Edith  noticed,  was 
rather  silent,  and  Maurice,  though  grown  up  to  the  extent 
of  being  married,  hadn't  much  to  say — but  once  he  winked 
at  Edith  and  again  tried  to  pull  her  hair, — so  she  knew 
that  he,  also,  was  patient.  She  was  too  absorbed  to  return 
the  wink.  She  just  stared  at  Eleanor.  She  only  dared  to 
speak  to  her  once;  then,  breathlessly:  "I — I'm  going  to 
go  to  your  school,  when  I'm  sixteen."  It  was  as  if  she 
looked  forward  to  a  pilgrimage  to  a  shrine!  It  was  im- 
possible not  to  see  the  worship  in  her  face;  Eleanor  saw 
it,_and  her  smile  made  Edith  almost  choke  with  bliss. 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  45 

But,  like  herself,  the  Bride  had  nothing  to  say.  Eleanor 
just  sat  in  sweet,  empty  silence,  and  watched  Maurice, 
twisting  old  Rover's  ears,  and  answering  Mrs.  Hough- 
ton's  maternal  questions  about  his  winter  underclothing 
and  moths;  she  caught  that  wink  at  Edith,  and  the 
occasional  broad  grin  when  Mrs.  Houghton  scolded  him 
for  some  carelessness,  and  the  ridiculous  gesture  of  tearing 
his  hair  when  she  said  he  was  a  scamp  to  have  forgotten 
this  or  that.  Looking  at  the  careless  youth  of  him,  she 
laughed  to  herself  for  sheer  joy  in  the  beauty  of  it ! 

But  Edith's  plan  for  barn  conversation  with  Maurice 
fell  through,  because  after  supper,  with  an  air  of  complete 
self -justification,  he  said  to  his  hosts,  "Now  you  must 
hear  Eleanor  sing!" 

At  which  she  protested,  "Oh,  Maurice,  no!" 

The  Houghtons,  however,  were  polite;  so  they  all  went 
into  the  studio,  and,  standing  in  the  twilight,  with  Maurice 
playing  her  accompaniment,  she  sang,  very  simply,  and 
with  quite  poignant  beauty,  the  song  of  "Golden  Num- 
bers," with  its  serene  refrain: 

"O  sweet,  0  sweet  content!" 

"Lovely,  my  dear,"  Mrs.  Houghton  said,  and  Maurice 
was  radiant. 

"Is  Mr.  F.  your  father?"  Edith  said,  timidly;  and  while 
Eleanor  was  giving  her  maiden  name,  Edith's  terrified 
father  said,  in  a  ferocious  aside,  "Mary!  Kill  that  child!" 
Late  that  night  he  told  his  wife  she  really  must  do  some- 
thing about  Edith:  "Fortunately,  Eleanor  is  as  ignorant 
of  Dickens  as  of  'most  everything  else.  I  bet  she  never 
read  Little  Dorrit.  But,  for  God's  sake,  muzzle  that 
daughter  of  yours!  .  .  .  Mary,  you  see  how  he  was 
caught? — the  woman's  voice." 

' '  Don't  call  her  '  the  woman ' ! " 

"Well,  vampire.    Kit,  what  do  you  make  of  her?" 

"I  wish  I  knew  what  to  make  of  her!  I  feel  sure  she 
is  really  and  truly  good.  But,  oh,  Henry,  she's  so  mortal 
dull!  She  hasn't  a  spark  of  humor  in  her." 

"'Course  not.    If  she  had,  she  wouldn't  have  married 


46  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

him.  But  he  has  humor!  Better  warn  her  that  a  short  cut 
to  matrimonial  unhappiness  is  not  to  have  the  same  taste 
in  jokes!  Mary,  maybe,  her  music  will  hold  him?" 

"Maybe,"  said  Mary  Houghton,  sighing. 

'"Consider  the  stars,'"  he  quoted,  sarcastically;  but 
she  took  the  sting  out  of  his  gibe  by  saying,  very  simply : 

"Yes,  I  try  to." 

"He  is  good  stuff,"  her  husband  said;  "straight  as  a 
string !  When  he  came  into  the  studio  to  talk  things  over 
he  was  as  sober  as  if  he  were  fifty,  and  hadn't  made  an 
ass  of  himself.  He  took  up  the  income  question  in  a  sur- 
prisingly businesslike  way;  then  he  said  that  of  course  he 
knew  I  didn't  like  it — his  giving  up  college  and  flying  off 
the  handle,  and  getting  married  without  saying  anything 
to  me.  '  But,'  he  said,  '  Eleanor's  aunt  is  an  old  hell-cat ; — 
she  was  going  to  drag  Eleanor  abroad,  and  I  had  to  get 
her  out  of  her  clutches!'  ...  I  think,"  Henry  Houghton 
interrupted  himself,  "that's  one  explanation  of  Maurice: 
rescuing  a  forlorn  damsel.  Well,  I  was  perfectly  direct 
with  him ;  I  said,  '  My  dear  fellow,  Mrs.  Newbolt  is  not  a 
hell-cat ;  and  the  elopement  was  in  bad  taste.  Elopements 
are  always  in  bad  taste.  But  the  elopement  is  the  least 
important  part  of  it.  The  difference  in  age  is  the  serious 
1  thing.'  I  got  it  out  of  him  just  what  it  is — almost  twenty 
'  years.  She  might  be  his  mother ! — he  admitted  that  he 
had  had  to  lie  about  himself  to  get  the  license.  I  said, 
't '  Your  age  is  the  dangerous  thing,  Maurice,  not  hers ;  and 
t  it's  up  to  you  to  keep  steady ! '  Of  course  he  didn't  believe 
me,"  said  Mr.  Houghton,  sighing.  "He's  in  love  all 
right,  poor  infant !  The  next  thing  is  for  me  to  find  a  job 
for  him.  .  .  .  She  is  good  looking,  Mary?"  She  nodded, 
and  he  said  again,  "A  pre-Raphaelite  woman;  those  full 
red  lips,  and  that  lovely  black  hair  growing  so  low  on  her 
forehead.  And  a  really  good  voice.  And  a  charming  figure. 
But  I  tell  you  one  thing:  she's  got  to  stop  twitting  on 
facts.  Did  you  hear  her  say,  'Maurice  is  so  ridiculously 
young,  he  doesn't  remember' — ?  I  don't  know  what  it 
was  he  didn't  remember.  Something  unimportant.  But 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  47 

'she  must  not  put  ideas  about  his  youth  into  his  head. 
He'll  know  it  soon  enough!  You  tell  her  that." 

4 '  Thank  you  so  much ! ' '  said  Mary  Houghton.  4 '  Henry, 
you  mustn't  say  things  before  Edith !  Suppose  Eleanor  had 
known  her  Little  Dorr-it?" 

4 'She  doesn't  know  anything;  and  she  has  nothing  to 
say." 

4 'Well,  it  might  be  worse,"  she  encouraged  him.  "Sup- 
pose she  were  talkative?" 

He  nodded:  "Yes;  a  dull  woman  is  bad,  and  a  talkative 
woman  is  bad;  but  a  dull  talkative  woman  is  hell." 

"My  dear!  I'm  glad  Edith's  in  bed.  Well,  I  think  I 
like  her." 


CHAPTER  VI 

BUT  the  time  arrived  when  Mrs.  Houghton  was  certain 
that  she  "liked "  Maurice's  wife.  It  would  have  come 
sooner  if  Eleanor's  real  sweetness  had  not  been  hidden  by 
her  tiresome  timidity  ...  a  thunderstorm  sent  her, 
blanched  and  panting,  to  sit  huddled  on  her  bed,  shutters 
closed,  shades  drawn;  she  schemed  not  to  go  upstairs  by 
herself  in  the  dark;  she  was  preoccupied  when  old  Lion 
took  them  off  on  a  slow,  jogging  drive,  for  fear  of  a  run- 
away. 

Everybody  was  aware  of  her  nervousness.  Until  it  bored 
him,  Henry  Houghton  was  touched  by  it; — probably  there ; 
is  no  man  who  is  so  intelligent  that  the  Clinging  Vine  makes 
no  appeal  to  him.  Mrs.  Houghton  was  impatient  with  it. 
Edith,  who  could  not  understand  fear  in  any  form,  tried, 
in  her  friendly  little  way,  to  reason  Eleanor  out  of  one 
panic  or  another.  The  servants  joked  among  themselves 
at  the  foolishness  of  "Mrs.  Maurice";  and  the  mono- 
syllabic Johnny  Bennett,  when  told  of  some  of  Eleanor's 
scares,  was  bored.  "Let's  play  Indian,"  said  Johnny. 

It  was  only  Maurice  who  found  all  the  scares — just  as 
he  found  the  silences  and  small  jealousies — adorable !  The 
silences  meant  unspeakable  depths  of  thought;  the  jeal- 
ousies were  a  sign  of  love.  The  terrors  called  for  his 
protecting  strength!  One  of  the  unfair  irrationalities  of 
love  is  that  it  may,  at  first,  be  attracted  by  the  defects  of 
the  beloved,  and  later  repelled  by  them.  Maurice  loved 
Eleanor  for  her  defects.  Once,  when  he  and  Edith  were 
helping  Mrs.  Houghton  weed  her  garden,  he  stopped 
grubbing,  and  sat  down  in  the  gold  and  bronze  glitter  of 
coreopsis,  to  expatiate  upon  the  exquisiteness  of  the 
defects.  Her  wonderful  mind:  "She  doesn't  talk,  because 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  49 

she  is  always  thinking ;  her  ideas  are  'way  over  my  head ! " 
Her  funny  timidity:  "She  wants  me  to  take  care  of  her!" 
Her  love:  "She's — it  sounds  absurd! — but  she's  jealous, 
because  she's  so — well,  fond  of  me,  don't  you  know,  that 
she  sort  of  objects  to  having  people  round.  Did  you  ever 
hear  of  anything  so  absurd?" 

"I  certainly  never  did,"  his  old  friend  said,  dryly. 

"Well,  but" — Maurice  defended  his  wife — "it's  because 
she  cares  about  me,  don't  you  know?  She — well,  this  is  in 
confidence — she  said  once  that  she'd  like  to  live  on  a 
desert  island,  just  with  me!" 

"So  would  I,"  said  Edith.    Her  mother  laughed: 

"Tell  her  desert  islands  have  to  have  a  'man  Friday' — 
to  say  nothing  of  a  few  'women  Thursdays'!" 

Eleanor  was,  Maurice  said,  like  music  heard  far  off, 
through  mists  and  moonlight  in  a  dark  garden,  "full  of — 
of — what  are  those  sweet-smelling  things,  that  bloom 
only  at  night?"  (Mary  Houghton  looked  fatigued.) 
"Well,  anyway,  what  I  mean  is  that  she  isn't  like  ordinary 
people,  like  me — " 

"Or  Johnny,"  Edith  broke  in,  earnestly. 

"Johnny?  Gosh!  Why,  Mrs.  Houghton,  things  that 
don't  touch  most  human  beings,  affect  her  terribly.  The 
dark,  or  thunderstorms,  or — or  anything,  makes  her  nerv- 
ous. You  understand  ? ' ' 

Mrs.  Houghton  said  yes,  she  understood,  but  she  would 
leave  the  rest  of  the  weeding  to  her  assistants.  ...  In 
the  studio,  dropping  her  dusty  garden  gloves  on  a  fresh 
canvas  lying  on  the  table,  she  almost  wept: 

"Henry,  it  is  too  tragic!  She  is  such  a  goose,  and  he  is 
so  silly  about  her!  What  shall  we  do?" 

"I'll  tell  you  what  not  to  do — spoil  my  new  canvas! 
If  you  really  want  my  advice : — tell  Eleanor  that  the  great- 
est compliment  any  husband  can  pay  his  wife  is  con- 
tained in  four  words:  'You  never  bore  me';  and  that  if 
she  isn't  careful  Maurice  will  never  compliment  her." 

Down  in  the  garden,  no  one  was  aware  of  any  tragedy. 
'When  I  go  to  Fern  Hill,"  Edith  said,  "I'm  going  to  tell 


5o  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

all  the  girls  /  know  Eleanor!  I'm  'ordinary,'  too,  beside 
her.  And  so  is  mother." 

Maurice  agreed.    "We  are  all  crude,  compared  to  her." 

Edith  sighed  with  joy;  if  she  had  had  any  inclination 
to  be  contemptuous  of  Eleanor's  timidity,  it  vanished 
when  it  was  pointed  out  to  her  that  it  was  really  a  sign 
of  the  Bride's  infinite  superiority.  ...  So  the  three 
Houghtons  accepted — one  with  amused  pity,  and  the  other 
with  concern,  and  the  third  with  admiration  of  such 
super-refinement, — the  fact  that  Eleanor  was  a  coward. 
Yet  if  she  had  not  been  a  coward,  something  she  did 
would  not  have  been  particularly  brave,  nor  would  it 
have  wrung  from  Mary  Houghton  the  admission:  "I 
like  her!" 

The  conquering  incident  happened  in  August.  The  hut 
up  in  the  woods  meant  to  Maurice  and  Edith  and  Johnny 
that  eager  grasping  at  hardship  with  which  Age  has  no 
sympathy,  but  which  is  the  very  essence  of  Youth.  Within 
a  week  of  her  arrival  at  Green  Hill,  Eleanor  (who  did  not 
like  hardship;)  had  been  carried  off  for  a  day  of  eating 
smoky  food,  cooked  on  a  camp  fire,  and  watching  cloud 
shadows  drift  across  the  valley  and  up  and  over  the  hills; 
she  had  wondered,  silently,  why  Maurice  liked  this  very 
tiring  sort  of  thing? — and  especially  why  he  liked  to  have 
Edith  go  along!  "A  child  of  her  age  is  such  a  nuisance," 
Eleanor  thought.  But  he  did  like  it,  all  of  it! — the  fatigue, 
and  the  smoke,  and  the  grubby  food — and  Edith! — he 
liked  it  so  much  that,  just  before  the  time  set  for  their 
departure  for  Mercer — and  the  position  in  a  real-estate 
office,  which  had  been  secured  for  Maurice — he  said : 

"Nelly,  let's  camp  out  up  in  the  cabin  for  our  last 
week,  all  by  ourselves!" 

Edith's  face  fell,  and  so,  for  that  matter,  did  the  Bride's. 
Edith  said,  "By  yourselves?  Not  Johnny  and  me,  too?" 
And  Eleanor  said,  "At  night?  Oh,  Maurice!" 

"It  will  be  beautiful,"  he  said;  "there  '11  be  a  moon 
next  week,  and  we'll  sit  up  there  and  look  down  into  the 
valley,  and  see  the  treetops  lift  up  out  of  the  mist — like 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  51 

islands  from  the  foam  of  'faery lands  forlorn'!  You'll 
love  it." 

"I'm  crazy  about  camping,"  said  Edith,  eagerly; — and 
waited  for  an  invitation,  which  was  not  forthcoming.  In- 
stead, Maurice,  talking  his  plans  over  with  her,  made  it 
quite  clear  that  her  room  was  better  than  her  company. 
It  was  Edith's  first  experience  in  being  left  out,  and  it 
sobered  her  a  little;  but  she  swallowed  the  affront  with 
her  usual  good  sense: 

"I  guess  he  likes  Eleanor  more  'an  me,  so,  'course,  it's 
nice  to  be  by  himself  with  her." 

The  prospect  of  being  "by  themselves"  for  a  week  was 
deeply  moving  to  Maurice.  And  even  Eleanor,  though 
she  quaked  at  the  idea  of  spiders  or  thunderstorms, 
thought  of  the  passion  of  it  with  a  thrill.  "We'll  be  all 
alone!"  she.  said  to  herself. 

The  morning  that  they  started  gypsying,  everything 
was  very  impatient  and  delightful.  The  packing,  the  roll- 
ing up  of  blankets,  the  stowing  of  cooking  utensils,  the 
consulting  of  food  lists  to  make  sure  nothing  was  being 
forgotten — all  meant  much  tearing  about  and  bossing; 
then  came  the  loading  the  stuff  into  the  light  wagon, 
which,  with  old  Lion,  Mr.  Houghton  had  offered  to  convey 
the  campers  (and  a  temporary  Edith)  up  to  the  top  of 
the  mountain.  Edith  was,  of  course,  frankly  envious, 
but  accepted  the  privilege  of  even  a  day  in  camp  with 
humble  gratitude. 

"Rover  and  Johnny  and  I  will  come  up  pretty  often, 
even  if  it's  only  for  an  hour,  because  Eleanor  must  not 
hurt  her  hands  by  washing  dishes,"  she  said,  earnestly 
(still  fishing  for  an  invitation). 

But  Maurice  only  agreed,  as  earnestly:  "No!  Imagine 
Eleanor  washing  dishes !  But  I  don't  want  you  to  stay  all 
night,  Buster,"  he  told  her,  candidly;  then  he  paused 
in  his  work,  flung  up  his  arms  with  a  great  breath  of  joy- 
ousness.  "Great  Scott!"  he  said.  "I  don't  see  why 
gypsies  ever  die!" 

Edith  felt  an  answering  throb  of  ecstasy.  "  Oh,  Maurice, 


S2  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

I  wish  you  and  I  were  gypsies!"  she  said.  She  did  not 
in  the  least  resent  his  candor  as  to  her  presence  during  the 
week  of  camping;  though  just  before  they  started  her  feel- 
ings really  were  a  little  hurt:  it  happened  that  in  trying 
to  help  Eleanor  pack,  she  was  close  enough  to  her  to 
notice  a  thread  on  her  hair;  instantly,  she  put  out  a 
friendly  and  officious  thumb  and  finger  to  remove  it — at 
which  Eleanor  winced,  and  said,  "Ouch!" 

"I  thought  it  was  a  white  thread,"  Edith  explained, 
abashed. 

Eleanor  said,  sharply,  "Please  don't  touch  my  hair!" 
which  conveyed  nothing  to  Edith  except  that  the  Bride 
— who  instantly  ran  up  to  her  room — "was mad."  When 
she  came  back  (the  "thread"  having  disappeared)  Edith 
was  full  of  apologies. 

"Awfully  sorry  I  mussed  your  hair,"  she  said. 

She  went  up  the  mountain  with  them,  walking  on  the 
hard  grades,  and  trying  to  placate  Eleanor  by  keeping  a 
hand  on  Lion's  bridle,  so  that  she  might  feel  sure  he 
wouldn't  run  away.  When  at  last,  rather  blown  and  per- 
spiring, they  reached  the  camp,  Eleanor  got  out  of  the 
wagon  and  said  she  wanted  to  "help";  but  Edith,  still 
contrite  about  the  "thread,"  said:  "No!  I'm  not  going 
to  have  you  hurt  your  lovely  hands!"  In  the  late  after- 
noon, having  saved  Eleanor's  hands  in  every  possible  way, 
she  left  them,  and  thinking,  without  the  slightest  rancor, 
of  the  rough  bliss  she  was  not  asked  to  share,  went  running 
down  the  mountain  with  Rover  at  her  heels. 

Eleanor,  wondering  at  her  willingness  to  take  that  long 
road  home  with  only  the  lumbering  old  dog  for  company, 
was  intensely  glad  to  have  her  go. 

"Girls  of  that  age  are  so  uninteresting,"  she  told  Mau- 
rice; "and  now  we'll  be  all  by  ourselves!" 

"Yes;  Adam  and  Eve,"  he  said;  "and  twilight;  and 
the  world  spread  out  like  a  garden!  Do  you  see  that 
glimmer  over  there  to  the  left?  That's  the  beginning  of 
the  river — our  river!" 

He  had  made  her  comfortable  with  some  cushions  piled 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  53 

against  the  trunk  of  a  tree,  and  lighted  a  fire  in  a  ring  of 
blackened  stones;  then  he  brought  her  her  supper,  and 
ate  his  own  on  his  knees  beside  her,  watching  eagerly  for 
ways  to  serve  her,  laughing  because  she  cringed  when, 
from  an  overhanging  bough,  a  spider  let  himself  down 
upon  her  skirt,  and  hurrying  to  bring  her  a  fresh  cup  of 
coffee,  because  an  unhappy  ant  had  scalded  himself  to 
death  in  her  first  cup.  Afterward  he  would  not  let  her 
"hurt  her  hands"  by  washing  the  dishes.  When  this 
was  over,  and  the  dusk  was  deepening,  he  went  into  the 
woods  to  the  "lean-to"  in  which  Lion  was  quartered,  to 
see  that  the  old  horse  was  comfortable,  but  a  minute  later 
came  crashing  back  through  the  underbrush,  laughing, 
but  provoked. 

"That  imp,  Edith,  didn't  hitch  him  securely,  and  the 
old  fellow  has  walked  home,  if  you  please — !" 

"Lion — gone?   Oh,  what  shall  we  do?" 

"I'll  pull  the  wagon  down  when  I  want  to  go  back  for 
food." 

"Pwtfit?" 

"Won't  need  much  pulling!  It  will  go  down  by  itself. 
If  I  put  you  in  it,  I'll  have  to  rope  a  log  on  behind  as  a 
brake,  or  it  would  run  over  me!  I  bet  I  give  Edith  a 
piece  of  my  mind,  when  I  get  hold  of  her.  But  it  doesn't 
really  matter.  I  think  I  like  it  better  to  have  not  even 
Lion.  Just  you — and  the  stars.  They  are  beginning  to 
prick  out,"  he  said.  He  stretched  himself  on  the  ground 
beside  her,  his  hands  clasped  under  his  head,  and  his 
happy  eyes  looking  up  into  the  abyss.  "Sing,  Star,  sing!" 
he  said.  So  she  sang,  softly: 

"How  many  times  do  I  love  again? 
Tell  me  how  many  beads  there  are 

In  a  silver  chain 

Of  evening  rain 

Unraveled  from  the  tumbling  main 
And  threading  the  eye  of  a  yellow  star — 
So  many  times — 


54  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

"It  looks,"  she  broke  off,  "a  little  black  in  the  west? 
And — was  that  lightning?" 

"Only  heat  lightning.  And  if  it  should  storm, — I  have 
you  here,  in  my  arms,  alone ! ' '  He  turned  and  caught  her  to 
him,  and  his  mouth  crushed  hers.  Her  eyes  closed,  and 
her  passion  answered  his,  and  all  that  he  whispered.  Yet 
while  he  kissed  her,  her  eyes  opened  and  she  looked  fur- 
tively beyond  him,  toward  that  gathering  blackness. 

They  lay  there  together  in  the  starlit  dark,  for  a  long 
time,  his  head  on  her  breast.  Sometimes  she  thrilled  at 
his  touch  or  low  word,  and  sometimes  she  held  his  hand 
against  her  lips  and  kissed  it — which  made  him  protest — • 
but  suddenly  he  said,  "By  George!  Nelly,  I  believe  we  . 
are  going  to  have  a  shower!" 

Instantly  she  was  alert  with  fright,  and  sat  up,  and 
looked  down  into  the  valley,  where  the  heat  lightning,! 
which  had  been  winking  along  the  line  of  the  hills,  sud-' 
denly  sharpened  into  a  flash.  ' '  Oh! ' '  she  said,  and  held  her  : 
breath  until,  from  very  far  off,  came  a  faint  grumble  of 
thunder.  "Oh,  Maurice!"  she  said,  "it  is  horrible  to  be 
out  here — if  it  thunders!" 

"We  won't  be.  We'll  go  into  the  cabin,  and  we'll  hear 
the  rain  on  the  roof,  and  the  clash  of  the  branches;  and 
we'll  see  the  lightning  through  the  chinks — and  I'll  have 
you!  Oh,  Nelly,  we  shall  be  part  of  the  storm! — and, 
nothing  in  God's  world  can  separate  us." 

But  this  time  she  could  not  answer  with  any  elemental 
impulse;  she  had  no  understanding  of  "being  part  of 
the  storm";  instead,  she  watched  the  horizon.  "Oh!" 
she  said,  flinching.  "I  don't  like  it.  What  shall  we  do? 
Maurice,  it  is  going  to  thunder!" 

"I  think  I  did  feel  a  drop  of  rain,"  he  said, — and  held 
out  his  hand:  "Yes,  Star,  rain!  It's  begun!"  He  helped 
her  to  her  feet,  gathered  up  some  of  the  cushions,  and 
hurried  her  toward  the  little  shelter.  She  ran  ahead  of 
him,  her  very  feet  reluctant,  lest  the  possible  "snake" 
should  curl  in  the  darkness  against  her  ankles;  but  once 
in  the  cabin,  with  a  candle  lighted,  she  could  not  see  the 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  55 

lightning,  so  she  was  able  to  laugh  at  herself;  when 
Maurice  went  out  for  the  rest  of  the  cushions,  she  charged 
him  to  hurry!  "The  storm  will  be  here  in  a  minute!"  she 
called  to  him.  And  he  called  back : 

"I'll  only  be  a  second!" 

She  stc;>d  in  the  doorway  looking  after  him,  and  saw 
his  figure  outlined  against  the  glimmer  of  their  fire,  which 
had  already  felt  the  spatter  of  the  coming  storm  and  was 
dying  down;  then,  even  as  she  looked,  he  seemed  to  plunge 
forward,  and  fall — the  thud  of  that  fall  was  like  a  blow 
on  her  throat!  She  gasped,  "Maurice — "  And  again, 
"Maurice!  Have  you  hurt  yourself?" 

He  did  not  rise.  A  splash  of  rain  struck  her  face;  the 
mountain  darkness  was  slit  by  a  rapier  of  lightning,  and 
there  was  a  sudden  violent  illumination;  she  saw  the 
tree  and  the  cushions,  and  Maurice  on  the  ground — then 
blackness,  and  a  tremendous  crash  of  thunder. 

' '  Maurice ! ' '  she  called.  ' '  Maurice ! ' '  The  branches  over 
the  roof  began  to  move  and  rustle,  and  there  was  a  sudden 
downpour  of  rain;  the  camp  fire  went  out,  as  if  an  ex- 
tinguisher had  covered  it.  She  stood  in  the  doorway  for 
a  breathless  instant,  then  ran  back  into  the  cabin,  and, 
catching  the  candle  from  the  table,  stepped  out  into  the 
blackness;  instantly  the  wind  bore  the  little  flame  away! 
— then  seemed  to  grip  her,  and  twist  her  about,  and  beat 
her  back  into  the  house.  In  her  terror  she  screamed  his 
name;  and  as  she  did  so,  another  flash  of  lightning  showed 
her  his  figure,  motionless  on  the  ground. 

"He  -is  dead,'1  she  said  to  herself,  in  a  whisper.  "What 
shall  I  do?"  Then,  suddenly,  she  knew  what  to  do: 
she  remembered  that  she  had  noticed  a  lantern  hanging 
on  the  wall  near  the  door;  and  now  something  impelled 
her  to  get  it.  In  the  stifling  darkness  of  the  shack  she 
felt  her  way  to  it,  held  its  oily  ring  in  her  hand,  thought, 
frantically,  of  matches,  groped  along  toward  the  mantel- 
piece, stumbled  over  a  chair — and  clutched  at  the  match 
box!  Something  made  her  open  the  isinglass  slide,  strike  a 
match,  and  touch  the  blackened  wick  with  the  sulphurous 


56  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

sputter  of  flame, — the  next  moment,  with  the  lighted  lan- 
tern in  her  hand,  she  was  out  in  the  sheeting  blackness  of 
the  rain ! — running ! — running ! — toward  that  still  figure  by 
the  deadened  fire.  Just  before  she  reached  it  a  twig  rolled 
under  her  foot,  and  she  said,  "A  snake" — but  she  did  not 
flinch.  As  she  gained  the  circle  of  stones,  a  flash  of 
lightning,  with  its  instant  and  terrific  crack  and  bellow 
of  thunder,  showed  her  a  streak  of  blood  on  Maurice's 
face.  .  .  .  He  had  tripped  and  fallen,  and  his  head  had 
struck  one  of  the  blackened  stones. 

"He  is  dead,"  she  said  again,  aloud.  She  put  the  lan- 
tern on  the  ground  and  knelt  beside  him ;  she  had  an  idea 
that  she  should  place  her  hand  on  his  heart  to  see  if  he 
were  alive.  "He  isn't,"  she  told  herself;  but  she  laid  her 
fingers,  which  were  shaking  so  that  she  could  not  unfasten 
his  coat,  somewhere  on  his  left  side;  she  did  not  know 
whether  there  was  any  pulse;  she  knew  nothing,  except 
that  he  was  "dead."  She  said  this  in  a  whisper,  over  and 
over.  "He  is  dead.  He  is  dead."  The  rain  came  down  in 
torrents;  the  trees  creaked  and  groaned  in  the  wind;  twice 
there  were  flashes  of  lightning  and  appalling  roars  of  thun- 
der. Maurice  was  perfectly  still.  The  smoky  glimmer" 
of  the  lantern  played  on  the  thin  streak  of  blood  and 
made  it  look  as  though  it  was  moving — trickling — 

Then  Eleanor  began  to  think:  "There  ought  to  be  a 
doctor.  ..."  If  she  left  him,  to  bring  help,  he  might 
bleed  to  death  before  she  could  get  back  to  him.  Instantly, 
as  she  said  that,  she  knew  that  she  did  not  believe  that  he 
was  dead!  She  knew  that  she  had  hope.  With  hope,  a 
single  thought  possessed  her.  She  must  take  him  down  the 
mountain.  .  .  .  But  how?  She  could  not  carry  him; — 
she  had  managed  to  prop  him  up  against  her  knee,  his 
blond  head  lolling  forward,  awfully,  on  his  breast — but 
she  knew  that  to  carry  him  would  be  impossible.  And 
Lion  was  not  there !  "I  couldn't  have  harnessed  him  if  he 
were,"  she  thought. 

She  was  entirely  calm,  but  her  mind  was  working  rap- 
idly: The  wagon  was  in  the  lean-to!  Could  she  get  him 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  57 

into  it?  The  road  was  downhill.  .  .  .  Almost  to  Doctor 
Bennett's  door.  .  .  . 

Instantly  she  sprang  to  her  feet  and,  with  the  pale  gleam 
of  the  lantern  zigzagging  across  the  path,  she  ran  back  to 
the  shed;  just  as  she  reached  it,  a  glimmer  of  light  fell 
on  the  soaked  earth,  and  she  looked  up  with  a  start  and 
saw  the  moon  peering  out  between  two  ragged,  swiftly 
moving  clouds;  then  all  was  black  again — but  the  rain 
was  lessening,  and  there  had  been  no  lightning  for  several 
minutes.  "He  will  die;  I  must  save  him,"  she  said,  her 
lips  stiff  with  horror.  She  lifted  the  shafts  of  the  wagon, 
and  gave  a  little  pull ;  it  moved  easilv  enough,  and,  guiding 
it  along  the  slight  decline,  she  brought  it  to  Maurice's  side. 
There,  looking  at  him,  she  said  again,  rigidly: 

"He  will  die;   I  must  save  him." 

As  Henry  Houghton  said  afterward,  "It  was  impos- 
sible!— so  she  did  it." 

It  took  her  more  than  an  hour  to  do  it,  to  pull  and 
lift  and  shove  the  inert  figure!  Afterward  she  used  to 
wonder  how  she  had  done  it;  wonder  how  she  had  given 
the  final  push,  which  got  his  sagging  body  up  on  to  the 
floor  of  the  wagon!  It  had  strained  every  part  of  her; — 
her  shoulder  against  his  hips,  her  head  in  the  small  of  his 
back,  her  hands  gripping  his  heavy,  dangling  legs.  She  was 
soaking  wet;  her  hair  had  loosened,  and  stray  locks  were 
plastered  across  her  forehead.  She  grunted  like  a  toiling 
animal. 

It  seemed  as  if  her  heart  would  crack  with  her  effort, 
her  muscles  tear;  she  forgot  the  retreating  rumble  of  the 
storm,  the  brooding,  dripping  forest  stillness;  she  forgot 
even  her  certainty  that  he  would  die.  She  entirely  forgot 
herself.  She  only  knew — straining,  gasping,  sweating — 
that  she  must  get  the  body — the  dead  body  perhaps! — 
into  the  wagon.  And  she  did  it!  Just  as  she  did  it,  she 
heard  a  faint  groan.  Her  heart  stood  still  with  terror, 
then  beat  frantically  with  joy. 

He  was  alive! 

She  ran  back  to  the  cabin  for  the  cushions  he  had  saved 


58 

from  the  rain,  and  pushed  them  under  his  head;  then 
tied  the  lantern  to  the  whip  socket;  then  recalled  what 
he  had  said  about  "roping  a  log  on  behind  as  a  brake." 
"Of  course!"  she  thought;  and  managed, — the  splinters 
tearing  her  hands — to  fasten  a  fairly  heavy  piece  of  wood 
under  the  rear  axle,  so  that  it  might  bump  along  behind 
the  wagon  as  a  drag.  She  pondered  as  she  did  these  things 
why  she  should  know  so  certainly  how  they  must  be  done  ? 
But  when  they  were  done,  she  said,  "Now!"  .  .  .  and 
went  and  stood  between  the  shafts. 

It  was  afcer  midnight  when  the  descent  began.  The 
moon  rode  high  among  fleecy  clouds,  but  on  either  side 
of  the  road  gulfs  of  darimess  lay  under  motionless  foliage. 
Sometimes  the  smoky  light  from  the  swaying  lantern 
shone  on  a  wet  black  branch,  snapped  by  the  gale  and 
lying  in  the  path,  and  Eleanor,  seeing  it,  wedging  her 
heels  into  the  mud  and  sliding  stones  of  the  road,  and 
straining  backward  between  the  shafts,  would  say,  "A 
snake.  .  .  .  I  must  save  Maurice."  Sometimes  she  would 
hear,  above  the  crunching  of  the  wheels  behind  her,  a 
faint  noise  in  the  undergrowth :  a  breaking  twig,  a  brushing 
sound,  as  of  a  furtive  footstep — and  she  would  say,  "A 
man.  ...  I  must  save  Maurice." 

The  yellow  flame  of  the  lantern  was  burning  white  in 
the  dawn,  as,  holding  back  against  the  weight  of  the  wagon 
— the  palms  of  her  bleeding  hands  clenched  on  the  shafts, 
her  feet  slipping,  her  ankles  twisted  and  wrenched — by 
and  by,  with  the  tears  of  physical  suffering  streaming 
down  her  face,  she  reached  the  foot  of  the  mountain.  Th$, 
thin,  cool  air  of  morning  flowed  about  her  in  crystalline 
stillness;  suddenly  the  sun  tipped  the  green  bowl  of  the 
world,  and  all  at  once  shadows  fell  across  the  road  like 
bars.  They  seemed  to  her,  in  her  daze  of  terror  and 
exhaustion,  insurmountable:  the  road  was  level  now,  but 
she  pulled  and  pulled,  agonizingly,  over  those  bars  of 
nothingness;  then  one  wheel  sank  into  a  rut,  and  the 
wagon  came  to  a  dead  standstill ;  but  at  the  same  moment 
she  saw  ahead  of  her,  among  the  trees,  Doctor  Bennett's 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  S9 

dark,  sleeping  house.  So,  dropping  the  shafts,  she  went 
stumbling  and  running,  to  pound  on  the  door,  and  gasp 
out: 

' '  Come — help — Maurice — come — ' ' 

"I  think,"  she  said  afterward,  lying  like  a  broken  thing 
upon  her  bed,  "I  was  able  to  do  it,  because  I  kept  saying, 
'I  must  save  Maurice.'  Of  course,  to  save  Maurice,  I 
wouldn't  mind  dying." 

"My  dear,  you  are  magnificent!"  Mary  Houghton  said, 
huskily.  Then  she  told  her  husband:  "Henry,  I  like  her! 
I  never  thought  I  would,  but  I  do." 

"I'll  never  say  'Mr.  F.'s  aunt'  again!"  he  promised, 
with  real  contrition. 

It  was  Eleanor's  conquering  moment,  for  everybody 
liked  her,  and  everybody  said  she  was  'magnificent' — 
except  Maurice,  who,  as  he  got  well,  said  almost  nothing. 

"I  can't  talk  about  it,"  was  all  he  had  to  say, 
choking.  "She's  given  her  life  for  mine,"  he  told  the 
doctor. 

"I  hope  not,"  Doctor  Bennett  said,  "I  hope  not.  But 
it  will  take  months,  Maurice,  for  her  to  get  over  this.  As 
for  saving  your  life,  my  boy,  she  didn't.  She  made  things 
a  lot  more  dangerous  for  you.  She  did  the  wrong  thing — • 
with  greatness !  You'd  have  come  to,  after  a  while.  But 
don't  tell  her  so." 

"Well,  I  should  say  not!"  Maurice  said,  hotly.  "She'll 
never  know  that!  And  anyway,  sir,  I  don't  believe  it.  I 
beli'eve  she  saved  my  life." 

"Well,  suit  yourself,"  the  doctor  said,  good-naturedly; 
"but  I  tell  you  one  thing:  whether  she  saved  your  life  or 
not,  she  did  a  really  wonderful  thing — considering  her 
temperament." 

Maurice  frowned:  "I  don't  think  her  temperament 
makes  any  difference.  It  would  have  been  wonderful  for 
anybody." 

"Well,  suit  yourself,"  Doctor  Bennett  said  again; 
"only,  if  Edith  had  done  it,  say,  for  Johnny,  who  weighs 


•6o  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

nearly  as  much  as  you,  I  wouldn't  have  called  it  particu- 
larly wonderful." 

"Oh,  Edith,"  Maurice  said,  grinning;  "no;  I  suppose 
not.  I  see  what  you  mean."  And  to  himself  he  added: 
"Edith  is  like  an  ox,  compared  to  Star.  Just  flesh  and 
blood.  No  nerves.  No  soul.  Doctor  Bennett  was  right. 
Eleanor's  temperament  does  make  it  more  wonderful." 


CHAPTER  VII 

IT  was  after  this  act  of  revealing  and  unnecessary  cour- 
age, that  the  Houghton  family  entirely  accepted  Elea- 
nor. There  were  a  few  days  of  anxiety  about  her,  and 
about  Maurice,  too ;  for,  though  his  slight  concussion  was 
not  exactly  alarming — yet,  "Keep  your  shirt  on,"  Doctor 
Bennett  cautioned  him;  "don't  get  gay.  And  don't  talk 
to  Mrs.  Curtis."  So  Maurice  lay  in  his  bed  in  another 
room,  and  entered,  silently,  into  a  new  understanding  of 
love,  which,  as  soon  as  he  was  permitted  to  see  Eleanor, 
he  tried  stumblingly  to  share  with  her. 

Physically,  she  was  terribly  prostrated;  but  spiritually, 
feeding  on  those  stumbling  words,  she  rejoiced  like  a  strong 
man  to  run  a  race !  She  saw  no  confession  in  the  fact  that 
everybody  was  astonished  at  what  she  had  done;  she 
was  astonished  herself.  "I  wasn't  afraid!"  she  said, 
wonderingly. 

"It  was  because  you  liked  Maurice  more  than  you  were 
scared,"  Edith  said;  she  offered  this  explanation  the  day 
that  Maurice  had  been  allowed  to  come  across  the  hall, 
rather  shakily,  to  adore  his  wife. 

His  first  sight  of  her  was  a  great  shock.  .  .  .  The  strain 
of  that  terrible  night  had  blanched  and  withered  her  face; 
there  were  lines  on  her  forehead  that  never  left  it. 

Edith,  sneaking  in  behind  him,  said  under  her  breath : 
"  Goodness !  Don't  she  look  old !' ' 

She  did.  But  as  Maurice  fell  on  his  knees  beside  her,  it 
seemed  as  if  she  drank  youth  from  his  lips.  Under  his 
kisses  her  worn  face  bloomed  with  joy. 

"It  was  nothing — nothing,"  she  insisted,  stroking  his 
thick  hair  with  her  trembling  hand,  and  trying  to  silence 
his  words  of  wondering  worship. 


62  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

"I  was  not  worthy  of  it.  ...  To  think  that  you — " 
He  hid  his  face  on  her  shoulder. 

Afterward,  when  he  went  back  to  his  own  room,  she 
lay,  smiling  tranquilly  to  herself;  her  look  was  the  look 
one  sees  on  the  face  of  a  woman  who,  in  that  pallid  hour 
after  the  supreme  achievement  of  birth,  has  looked  upon 
her  child.  She  was  entirely  happy.  From  the  open  door 
of  Maurice's  room  came,  now  and  then,  the  murmur  of 
Edith's  honest  little  voice,  or  Maurice's  chuckle.  They 
were  talking  about  her,  she  knew,  and  the  happy  color 
burned  in  her  cheeks.  When  he  came  in  for  his  second 
visit,  late  that  afternoon,  she  asked  him,  archly,  what  he 
and  Edith  had  been  talking  about  so  long  in  his  room? 

"I  believe  you  were  telling  her  what  a  goose  I  am 
about  thunderstorms,"  she  said. 

"I  was  not!"  he  declared — and  her  eyes  shone.  But 
when  she  urged — 

"Well,  what  were  you  talking  about?"  he  couldn't  re- 
member anything  but  a  silly  story  of  Edith's  hens.  He 
repeated  it,  and  Eleanor  sighed;  how  could  he  be  inter- 
ested in  anything  so  childish! 

As  it  happened,  he  was  not;  he  had  scarcely  listened  to 
Edith.  The  only  thing  that  interested  Maurice  now,  was 
what  Eleanor  had  done  for  him!  Thinking  of  it,  he 
brooded  over  her,  silently,  his  cheek  against  hers,  then 
Mrs.  Houghton  came  in  and  banished  him,  saying  that 
Eleanor  must  go  to  sleep;  "and  you  and  Edith  must  keep 
quiet!"  she  said. 

He  was  so  contrite  that,  tiptoeing  to  his  own  room,  he 
told  poor  faithful  Edith  her  voice  was  too  loud:  "You 
disturb  Eleanor.  So  dry  up,  Skeezics!" 

As  he  grew  stronger,  and  was  able  to  go  downstairs, 
Edith  felt  freer  to  talk  to  him — for  down  on  the  porch,  or 
out  in  the  garden,  her  eager  young  voice  would  not  reach 
those  languid  ears.  Then,  suddenly,  all  her  chances  to 
talk  stopped:  "What's  the  matter  with  Maurice?"  she 
pondered,  crossly;  "he's  backed  out  of  helping  me.  Why 
can't  he  go  on  shingling  the  chicken  coop?"  For  it  was 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  63 

while  this  delightful  work  was  under  way  that  it,  and 
"talk,"  came  to  an  abrupt  end. 

The  shingling,  begun  joyously  by  the  big  boy  and  the 
little  girl  on  Monday,  promised  several  delightfully  busy 
mornings.  ...  Of  course  the  setting  out  for  Mercer  had 
been  postponed;  there  was  no  possibility  of  moving  Elea- 
nor for  the  present;  so  Maurice's  "business  career,"  as  he 
called  it,  with  grinning  pomposity,  had  to  be  delayed — 
Eleanor  turned  white  at  the  mere  suggestion  of  conva- 
lascing  at  Green  Hill  without  him !  Consequently  Maurice, 
when  not  worshiping  his  wife,  had  nothing  to  do,  and 
Edith  had  seized  the  opportunity  to  make  him  useful.  .  .  . 
"We'll  shingle  my  henhouse,"  she  had  announced.  Mau- 
rice liked  the  scheme  as  much  as  she  did.  The  September 
air,  the  smell  of  the  fresh  shingles,  the  sitting  with  one 
leg  doubled  under  you,  and  the  other  outstretched  on  the 
hot  slope  of  the  roof,  the  tap-tapping  of  the  hammers,  the 
bossing  of  Edith,  the  trying  to  talk  of  Eleanor,  and  thun- 
derstorms, while  you  hold  eight  nails  between  your  lips; 
then  the  pause  while  Edith  climbs  down  the  ladder  and 
runs  to  the  kitchen  for  hot  cookies ;  all  these  things  would 
be  a  delightful  occupation  for  any  intelligent  person ! 

"It  '11  take  three  mornings  to  do  it,"  Edith  said,  im- 
portantly; and  Maurice  said: 

"It  will,  because  you  keep  putting  the  wrong  end  up! 
I  wish  Eleanor  was  well  enough  to  do  it,"  he  said — and 
then  burst  into  self -derisive  chuckles:  "Imagine  Eleanor 
straddling  that  ridgepole!  It  would  scare  her  stiff!" 

It  was  after  this  talk  that  Maurice  "backed  out"  on 
the  job — but  Edith  never  knew  why.  She  saw  no  connec- 
tion between  the  unfinished  roof,  and  the  fact  that  that 
same  afternoon,  sitting  on  the  floor  in  the  Bride's  room, 
she  had,  in  her  anxiety  to  be  entertaining,  repeated 
Maurice's  remark  about  the  ridgepole.  Eleanor,  who  had 
had  an  empty  morning,  listening  to  the  distant  tapping  of 
hammers,  had  drooped  a  weary  lip. 

"I  should  hate  it.    Horrid,  dirty  work!" 

"Oh  no!    It's  nice,  clean  work,"  Edith  corrected  her. 


64  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

"But  you  wouldn't  like  it,  of  course,"  she  said,  with  satis- 
faction; "you'd  be  scared!  You're  scared  of  everything, 
Maurice  says.  You  were  scared  to  death,  up  on  the 
mountain." 

Eleanor  was  silent. 

"He  thinks  it's  lovely  for  you  to  be  scared;  it's  funny 
about  Maurice,"  said  Edith,  thoughtfully;  "he  doesn't 
like  it  when  I'm  scared — not  that  I  ever  am,  now,  but  I 
used  to  be  when  I  was  a  child." 

The  color  flickered  on  Eleanor's  cheeks:  "Edith,  I'll 
rest  now,"  she  said;  her  voice  broke. 

Edith  looked  at  her,  open-mouthed.  "Why,  Eleanor!" 
she  said ;  ' '  what's  the  matter  ?  Are  you  mad  at  anything  ? 
Have  you  a  stomachache?  I'll  run  for  mother!" 

"There's  nothing  the  matter.  But — but  I  wish  you'd 
tell  Maurice  to  come  and  speak  to  me." 

Edith  tore  downstairs,  and  out  of  the  front  door: 
"Maurice!  Where  are  you?" — then,  catching  sight  of 
him,  reading  and  smoking  in  a  hammock  slung  between 
two  of  the  big  columns  on  the  east  porch,  she  rushed  at 
him,  and  pulled  him  to  his  astonished  feet.  "Eleanor 
wants  you!  Something's  the  matter,  and — " 

Before  she  could  finish,  Maurice  was  tearing  upstairs, 
two  steps  at  a  time.  .  .  . 

And  so  it  was  that  Edith,  sulkily,  worked  on  the  roof 
by  herself. 

Yet  Maurice  had  not  entirely  "backed  out."  .  .  .  The 
very  next  morning,  before  Edith  was  awake,  he  had  gone 
out  to  the  henhouse,  and,  alone,  done  more  than  his  share 
of  the  shingling. 

"But,  Maurice,  why  didn't  you  wake  me?"  Edith  pro- 
tested, when  she  discovered  what  he  had  done.  "I'd  have 
gone  out,  too!" 

"I  liked  doing  it  by  myself,"  Maurice  evaded. 

And  for  five  minutes  Edith  was  sulky  again.  "He  puts 
on  airs,  'cause  he's  married!  Well,  I  don't  care.  He  can 
shingle  the  whole  roof  by  himself  if  he  wants  to!  I  don't 
like  married  men,  anyhow." 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  65: 

The  married  man  had,  indeed,  wanted  to  be  by  him- 
self— to  put  the  nails  in  his  mouth,  and  to  sit  on  the  cold, 
slippery  shingles  in  the  gray  September  morning,  and  to- 
tap-tap-tap — and  think,  and  think. 

But  he  didn't  like  his  thoughts  very  well.  .  .  . 

He  thought  how  he  had  rushed  upstairs,  terrified  lest 
Eleanor  was  fainting  or  had  a  "stomachache,"  or  some- 
thing— and  found  her  sitting  up  in  bed,  her  cheeks  red  and 
glazed  with  tears,  her  round,  full  chin  quivering.  He 
thought  how  he  had  tried  to  make  out  what  she  was  driving 
at  about  Edith,  and  the  chicken  coop,  and  the  ridgepole! 

"You  told  Edith  I  was  scared!" 

Maurice's  bewilderment  was  full  of  stumbling  questions: 
"Told  Edith?  When?  What?" 

And  as  she  said  "when"  and  "what,"  ending  with, 
"You  said  I  am  scared!"  Maurice  could  only  say,  blankly. 
"But  my  darling,  you  are!" 

"You  may  think  I  am  a  fool,  but  to  tell  Edith  so — " 

"But  Great  Scott!   I  didn't!" 

"I  won't  have  you  talking  me  over  with  Edith;  she's  a 
child!  It  was  just  what  you  did  when  you  danced  three 
times  with  that  girl  who  said —  Edith  is  as  rude  as  she 
was! — and  she's  a  child.  How  can  you  like  to  be  with  a 
child?"  Of  course,  it  was  all  her  fear  of  Youth, — but 
Eleanor  did  not  know  that;  she  thought  she  was  hurt  at 
the  boy's  neglect.  Her  face,  wet  with  tears,  was  twitching, 
her  voice — that  lovely  voice! — was  shrill  in  his  astonished 
ears.  .  .  . 

Maurice,  on  the  sloping  roof,  in  the  chill  September 
dawn,  his  fingers  numb  on  the  frosty  nails,  stopped  ham- 
mering, and  leaned  his  chin  on  his  fist,  and  thought: 
"She's  sick.  She  almost  killed  herself  to  save  me;  so  her 
nerve  has  all  gone.  That's  why  she  talked — that  way." 
He  put  a  shingle  in  its  place,  and  planted  a  nail;  "it  was 
because  she  was  scared  that  what  she  did  was  so  brave !  I 
couldn't  make  her  see  that  the  more  scared  she  was,  the 
braver  she  was.  It  wouldn't  have  been  brave  in  that 
gump,  Edith,  without  a  nerve  in  her  body.  But  why  is  she 


66  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

down  on  Edith?  I  suppose  she's  a  nuisance  to  a  person 
with  a  wonderful  mind  like  Eleanor's.  Talks  too  much. 
I'll  tell  her  to  dry  up  when  she's  with  Eleanor."  And 
again  he  heard  that  strange  voice:  "You  like  to  talk  to  a 
child" 

Maurice,  pounding  away  on  Edith's  roof,  grew  hot  with 
misery,  not  because  it  was  so  terrible  to  have  Eleanor 
angry  with  him;  not  even  because  he  had  finally  got  mad, 
and  answered  back,  and  said,  "Don't  be  silly!"  The  real 
misery  was  something  far  deeper  than  this  half -amused 
remorse.  It  was  that  those  harmless,  scolding  words  of  his 
held  a  perfectly  new  idea:  he  had  said,  "Don't  be  silly." 
Was  Eleanor  silly? 

Now,  to  a  man  whose  feeling  about  his  wife  has  been  a 
sort  of  awe,  this  question  is  terrifying.  Maurice,  in  his 
boy's  heart,  had  worshiped  in  Eleanor,  not  just  the  god 
of  Love,  but  the  love  of  God.  And  was  she — silly?  No ! 
Of  course  not !  He  pounded  violently,  hit  his  thumb,  put 
it  into  his  mouth,  then  proceeded,  mumblingly,  to  bring 
his  god  back  from  the  lower  shrine  of  a  pitying  heart,  to 
the  high  altar  of  a  justifying  mind :  Eleanor  was  ill.  .  .  . 
She  was  nervous.  .  .  .  She  was  an  exquisite  being  of  mist 
and  music  and  courage  and  love!  So  of  course  she  was 
sensitive  to  things  ordinary  people  did  not  feel.  Saying 
this,  and  fitting  the  shingles  into  place,  suddenly  the  warm 
and  happy  wave  of  confident  idealism  began  to  flood  in 
upon  him,  and  immediately  his  mind  as  well  as  his  heart 
was  satisfied.  He  reproached  himself  for  having  been 
scared  lest  his  star  was  just  a  common  candle,  like  him- 
self. He  had  been  cruel  to  judge  her,  as  he  might  have 
judged  her  had  she  been  well — or  a  gump  like  Edith !  For 
had  she  been  well,  she  would  not  have  been  "silly" !  Had 
she  been  well — instead  of  lying  there  in  her  bed,  white  and 
strained  and  trembling,  all  because  she  had  saved  his  life, 
harnessing  herself  to  that  wagon,  and  bringing  him,  in  the 
darkness,  through  a  thousand  terrors — nonexistent,  to  be 
sure,  but  none  the  less  real — to  safety  and  life!  Oh,  how 
could  he  have  even  thought  the  word  "silly"?  He  was 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  67 

'  ashamed  and  humble;  never  again  would  he  be  cross  to 
her!  "Silly?  I'm  the  silly  one!  I'm  an  ass.  I'll  tell  her  so! 
I  don't  suppose  she'll  ever  forgive  me.  She  said  I  '  didn't 
understand  her';  well,  I  didn't!  But  she'll  never  have 
cause  to  say  it  again!  I  understand  her  now."  Then, 
once  more,  he  thought,  frowning,  "But  why  is  she  so  down 

.on  Edith?" 

That  Eleanor's  irritation  was  jealousy — not  of  Edith, 
but  of  Edith's  years — never  occurred  to  him.  So  all  he 
said  was,  "She  oughtn't  to  be  down  on  Edith;  she  has 
always  appreciated  her!"  Edith  had  never  said  that 
Eleanor  was  "silly"!  But  so  long  as  it  bothered  Eleanor 
(being  nervous)  to  have  the  imp  round,  he'd  tell  her  not 
to  be  a  nuisance.  "You  can  say  anything  to  Skeezics ;  she 
has  sense.  She  understands." 

But  all  the  same,  Maurice  shingled  his  part  of  the  hen- 
house before  breakfast. 

Maurice  did  not  call  Eleanor  "silly"  again  for  a  long 
time.  There  was  always — when  she  was  unreasonable — the 
curbing  memory  that  her  reasonableness  had  been  shaken 
by  that  assault  of  darkness  and  fear,  and  the  terrible  fa- 
tigue of  saving  his  robust  young  life.  Furthermore,  Doctor 
Bennett — telling  Henry  Houghton  that  Eleanor  had  done 
the  worst  possible  thing,  "magnificently" — told  Maurice 
she  had  "nervous  prostration," — a  cloaking  phrase  which 
kindly  doctors  often  give  to  perplexed  husbands,  so  that 
the  egotism  of  sickly  wives  may  be  covered  up !  So  Mau- 
rice, repeating  to  himself  these  useful  words,  saw  only 
ill  health,  not  silliness,  in  Eleanor's  occasional  tears.  It 
was  a  week  after  the  shingling  of  the  henhouse,  that,  leav- 
ing her  to  recuperate  still  further  at  Green  Hill,  he  started 
in  on  his  job  of  "office  boy" — his  jocose  title  for  his  posi- 
tion in  the  real-estate  office  in  Mercer.  Eleanor  did  not 
want  to  be  left,  and  said  so,  wistfully. 

"I'll  come  up  for  Sundays,"  Maurice  comforted  her, 
:  tenderly. 

On  these  weekly  visits  the  Houghtons  were  impressed 


68  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

by  his  tenderness;  he  played  solitaire  with  his  wife  by 
the  hour;  he  read  poetry  to  her  until  she  fell  asleep;  and 
he  told  her  everything  he  had  done  and  every  person  he 
had  seen,  while  he  was  away  from  her!  But  the  rest  of 
the  household  didn't  get  much  enjoyment  out  of  Eleanor. 
Even  the  adoring  Edith  had  moments  when  admiration 
had  to  be  propped  up  by  Doctor  Bennett's  phrase.  As, 
for  instance,  on  one  of  Maurice's  precious  Sundays,  he  and 
she  and  Johnny  Bennett  and  Rover  and  old  Lion  climbed 
up  to  the  cabin  to  make  things  shipshape  before  closing 
the  place  for  the  winter. 

"You'll  be  away  from  me  all  day,"  Eleanor  said,  and 
her  eyes  filled. 

Maurice  said  he  hated  to  leave  her,  but  he  had  always 
helped  Edith  on  this  closing-up  job. 

"Oh,  well;  go,  if  you  want  to,"  Eleanor  said;  "but  I 
don't  see  how  you  can  enjoy  being  with  a  perfect  child, 
like  Edith!" 

Maurice  went — not  very  happily.  But  it  was  such  a 
fine,  tingling  day  of  hard  work,  in  a  joyous  wind,  with 
resulting  appetites,  and  much  yelling  at  each  other — 
"Here,  drop  that!"  .  .  .  "Hurry  up,  slow  poke!" — that 
he  was  happy  again  before  he  knew  it.  After  the  work 
was  over  they  had  a  lazy  hour  before  the  fire,  their  eyes 
stinging  with  smoke  which  seemed  to  envelop  them,  no 
matter  on  which  side  they  sat;  an  hour  in  which  Rover 
drowsed  at  Maurice's  feet,  and  Johnny,  in  spectacles, 
read  A  Boy's  Adventures  in  the  Forests  of  Brazil,  and 
Edith  gabbled  about  Eleanor.  .  .  . 

"Oh,  I  wish  /  was  married,"  Edith  said;  "I'd  just  love 
to  save  my  husband's  life!" 

Maurice  said  little,  except  to  ask  Johnny  if  he  had  got 
to  such  and  such  a  place  in  the  Adventures,  or  to  assent  to 
Edith's  ecstasies;  but  once  he  sighed,  and  said  Eleanor 
was  awfully  pulled  down  by  that — that  night. 

"I  should  think,"  Edith  said,  "you'd  feel  she'd  just 
about  died  for  you,  like  people  in  history  who  died  for; 
each  other." 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  69 

"I  do,"  Maurice  said,  soberly. 

When  they  drove  home  in  the  dusk,  Maurice  singing, 
loudly ;  Edith,  on  the  front  seat  of  the  wagon,  snuggling 
against  him;  Johnny  standing  up,  balancing  himself  by 
holding  on  to  their  shoulders,  and  old  Rover  jogging  along 
on  the  footpath, — they  were  all  in  great  spirits,  until  a 
turn  in  the  road  showed  them  Eleanor,  sitting  on  a  log, 
looking  rather  white. 

"Suffering  snakes!"  said  Maurice,  breaking  off  in  the 
middle  of  a  word.  Before  Lion  could  quite  stop,  he  was 
at  his  wife's  side.  "Eleanor!  How  did  you  get  here ?  .  .  . 
You  walked?  Oh,  Star,  you  oughtn't  to  have  done  such  a 
thing!" 

"I  was  frightened  about  you.  It  was  so  late.  I  was 
afraid  something  had  happened.  I  came  to  look  for  you." 

Edith  and  Johnny  looked  on  aghast;  then  Edith  called 
out:  "Why,  Eleanor!  I  wouldn't  let  anything  happen 
to  Maurice!" 

Maurice,  kneeling  beside  his  wife,  had  put  his  arms 
around  her  and  was  soothing  her  with  all  sorts  of  gentle- 
nesses: "Dear,  you  mustn't  worry  so!  Nelly,  don't  cry; 
why,  darling,  we  were  having  such  a  good  time,  we  never 
noticed  that  it  was  getting  late.  ..." 

"You  forgot  me,"  Eleanor  said;  "as  long  as  you  had 
Edith,  you  never  thought  how  I  might  worry ! "  She  hid  her 
face  in  her  hands. 

Maurice  came  back  to  the  wagon;  "Edith,"  he  said,  in 
a  low  voice,  "would  you  and  Johnny  mind  getting  out 
and  walking?  I'll  bring  Eleanor  along  later.  I'm  sorry, 
but  she's — she's  tired." 

Edith  said  in  a  whisper,  " 'Course  not!"  Then,  without 
a  look  behind  her  at  the  crying  woman  on  the  log,  and  the 
patient,  mortified  boy  bending  over  her,  she,  and  the  dis- 
gusted and  more  deliberate  Johnny,  ran  down  the  road 
into  the  twilight.  Edith  was  utterly  bewildered.  With 
her  inarticulate  consciousness  of  the  impropriety  of 
emotion,  naked,  in  public!  was  the  shyness  of  a  child  in 
meeting  a  stranger — for  that  crying  woman  was  practically 


70  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

a  stranger.  She  wasn't  the  Bride — silent  and  lovely!  At 
Johnny's  gate  she  said,  briefly,  '"Night!"  and  went  on, 
running — running  in  the  dusk.  When  she  reached  the 
house,  and  found  her  father  and  mother  on  the  east  porch, 
she  was  breathless,  which  accounted  for  her  brevity  in 
saying  that  Maurice  and  Eleanor  were  coming — and  she 
was  just  starved !  In  the  dining  room,  eating  a  very  large 
supper,  she  listened  for  the  wheels  of  the  wagon  and 
reflected:  "Why  was  Eleanor  mad  at  me?  She  was  mad 
at  Maurice,  too.  But  most  at  me.  Why?"  She  took  an 
enormous  spoonful  of  sliced  peaches,  and  stared  blankly 
ahead  of  her. 

Ten  minutes  later,  hearing  wheels  grating  on  the  gravel 
at  the  front  door,  and  Maurice's  voice,  subdued  and 
apologetic,  she  pushed  her  chair  away  from  the  table, 
rushed  through  the  pantry  and  up  the  back  stairs.  She 
didn't  know  why  she  fled.  She  only  knew  that  she  couldn't 
face  Eleanor,  who  would  sit  with  Maurice  while  he  bolted 
a  supper  for  which — though  Edith  didn't  know  it! — all 
appetite  had  gone.  In  her  room  in  the  ell,  Edith  shut 
the  door,  and,  standing  with  her  back  against  it,  tried  to 
answer  her  own  question: 

"Why  was  Eleanor  mad?"  But  she  couldn't  answer  it. 
Jealousy,  as  an  emotion,  in  herself  or  anybody  else,  was 
absolutely  unknown  to  her.  She  had  probably  never  even 
heard  the  word — except  in  the  Second  Commandment,  or 
as  a  laughing  reproach  to  old  Rover — so  she  really  did 
not  know  enough  to  use  it  now  to  describe  Eleanor's 
behavior.  She  only  said,  "Maybe  it's  the  nervous  prostra- 
tion? Well,  I  don't  like  her  very  much.  I'm  glad  she 
won't  be  at  Fern  Hill  when  I  go  there."  To  be  a  Bride — 
and  yet  to  cry  before  people!  "Crying  before  people," 
Edith  said,  "is  just  like  taking  off  all  your  clothes  before 
people — I  don't  care  how  bad  her  nervous  prostration  is,1 
it  isn't  nice!  But  why  is  she  mad  at  me?  That  isn't, 
sense." 

You  can't  run  other  people's  feelings  to  cover,  and 
try  to  find  their  cause,  without  mental  and  moral  develop-^ 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  71 

ment;  all  this  analysis  lessened  very  visibly  Edith's  child- 
ishness; also,  it  made  her  rather  rudely  cold  to  Eleanor, 
whose  effort  to  reinstate  herself  in  the  glories  of  the  little 
girl's  imagination  only  resulted  in  still  another  and  en- 
tirely new  feeling  in  Edith's  mind — contempt. 

"If  she  had  a  right  to  be  mad  at  me  yesterday — why 
isn't  she  mad  to-day?"  Edith  reasoned. 

Eleanor  was  quick  to  feel  the  contempt.  "I  don't  care 
for  Edith,"  she  told  Maurice,  who  looked  surprised. 

"She's  only  a  child,"  he  said. 

Edith  seemed  especially  a  child  now  to  Maurice,  since 
he  had  embarked  on  his  job  at  Mercer.  Not  only  was  she 
unimportant  to  him,  but,  in  spite  of  his  mortification  at 
that  scene  on  the  road,  his  Saturday-night  returns  to 
his  wife  were  blowing  the  fires  of  his  love  into  such  a  glory 
of  devotion,  that  Edith  was  practically  nonexistent !  His 
one  thought  was  to  take  Eleanor  to  Mercer.  He  wanted 
her  all  to  himself !  Also,  he  had  a  vague  purpose  of  being 
on  his  dignity  with  a  lot  of  those  Mercer  people:  Elea- 
nor's aunt,  just  back  from  Europe;  Brown  and  Hastings — 
cubs!  But  below  this  was  the  inarticulate  feeling  that, 
away  from  the  Houghtons,  especially  away  from  Edith, 
he  might  forget  his  impulse  to  use — for  a  second  time — 
that  dreadful  word  "silly." 

So,  as  the  2oth  of  October  approached — the  day  when 
they  were  to  go  back  to  town — he  felt  a  distinct  relief  in 
getting  away  from  Green  Hill.  The  relief  was  general. 
Edith  felt  it,  which  was  very  unlike  Edith,  who  had 
always  sniffled  (in  private)  at  Maurice's  departure!  And 
her  father  and  mother  felt  it: 

"Eleanor's  mind,"  Henry  Houghton  said,  "is  exactly 
like  a  drum — sound  comes  out  of  emptiness!" 

"But  Maurice  seems  to  like  the  sound,"  Mrs.  Houghton 
reminded  him;  "and  she  loves  him." 

"She  wants  to  monopolize  him,"  her  husband  said; 
,"I  don't  call  that  love;  I  call  it  jealousy.  It  must  be 
uncomfortable  to  be  jealous,"  he  ruminated;  "but  the 
really  serious  thing  about  it  is  that  it  will  bore  any  man 


r72  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

to  death.  Point  that  out  to  her,  Mary!  Tell  her  that 
jealousy  is  self-love,  plus  the  consciousness  of  your  own 
inferiority  to  the  person  of  whom  you  are  jealous.  And  it 
has  the  same  effect  on  love  that  water  has  on  fire.  My 
definition  ought  to  be  in  a  dictionary1."  he  added,  com- 
placently. 

"What  sweet  jobs  you  do  arrange  for  me!"  she  said; 
"and  as  for  your  definition,  I  can  give  you  a  better  one — 
and  briefer:  'Jealousy  is  Human  Natur'!  But  I  don't 
believe  Eleanor's  jealous,  Henry;  she's  only  conscious, 
poor  girl!  of  Maurice's  youth.  But  there  is  something  I 
am  going  to  tell  her."  .  .  . 

She  told  her  the  day  before  the  bridal  couple  (Edith 
still  reveled  in  the  phrase!)  started  for  Mercer.  "Come 
out  into  the  orchard,"  Mary  Houghton  called  upstairs 
to  Eleanor,  "and  help  me  gather  windfalls  for  jelly." 

"I  must  pack  Maurice's  things,"  Eleanor  called  over 
the  banisters,  doubtfully;  "he's  a  perfect  boy  about 
packing;  he  put  his  boots  in  with  his  collars." 

"Oh,  come  along!"  said  Mrs.  Houghton.  And  Eleanor 
yielded,  scolding  happily  while  she  pinned,  her  hat  on 
before  the  mirror  in  the  hall. 

In  the  orchard  they  picked  up  some  apples,  then  sat 
down  on  the  bleached  stubble  of  the  mowed  hillside  and 
looked  over  at  the  dark  mass  of  the  mountain,  behind 
which  a  red  sun  was  trampling  waist  deep  through  leaden 
clouds.  "  How  can  I  bring  it  in  ? "  Mrs.  Houghton  thought ; 
"it  won't  do  to  just  throw  a  warning  at  her!" 

But  she  didn't  have  to  throw  it;  Eleanor  invited  it. 
"I'm  glad  we're  going  to  the  hotel,  just  at  first,"  she  said; 
"Auntie  says  I  don't  know  anything  about  keeping  house, 
and  I  get  worried  for  fear  I  won't  make  Maurice  com- 
fortable. I  tell  him  so  all  the  time!" 

"I  wouldn't  put  things  into  his  head,  Eleanor,"  Mrs. 
Houghton  said  (beginning  her  "warning");  "I  mean 
things  that  you  don't  want  him  to  feel.  I  remember 
when  my  first  baby  was  coming — the  little  boy  we  lost — " 
she  stopped  and  bit  her  lip;  the  "baby"  had  been  gone 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  73 

for  nearly  twenty  years,  but  he  was  still  her  little  boy — 
"I  was  very  forlorn,  and  I  couldn't  do  anything,  or  go 
anywhere;  and  Henry  stayed  at  home  with  me  like  a 
saint.  Well,  I  told  my  father  that  I  had  told  Henry  it  was 
hard  on  him  to  'sit  at  home  with  an  invalid  wife.'  And 
father  said,  'If  you  tell  him  so  often  enough,  he'll  agree 
with  you.'  There's  a  good  deal  in  that,  Eleanor?" 

"I  suppose  there  is,"  Maurice's  wife  said,  vaguely. 

"So,  if  I  were  you,"  Mrs.  Houghton  said,  still  feeling 
her  way,  "  I  wouldn't  give  him  the  idea  that  you  are  any — 
well,  older  than  he  is.  A  wife  might  be  fifty  years  older 
than  her  husband,  and  if  her  spirit  was  young,  years 
wouldn't  make  a  bit  of  difference!" 

Eleanor  took  this  somewhat  roundabout  advice  very 
well.  "The  only  thing  in  the  world  I  want,"  she  said, 
simply,  "is  to  make  him  happy." 

They  went  back  to  the  house  in  silence.  But  that  night 
Eleanor  paused  in  putting  some  last  things  into  her  trunk, 
and,  going  over  to  Maurice,  kissed  his  thick  hair.  "Mau- 
rice," she  said,  "are  you  happy?" 

*' You  bet  I  am!" 

"You  haven't  said  so  once  to-day." 

"I  haven't  said  I'm  alive,"  he  said,  grinning.  "Oh, 
Star,  won't  it  be  wonderful  when  we  can  get  away  from 
the  whole  caboodle  of  'em,  and  just  be  by  ourselves?" 

"That's  what  I  want!"  she  said;  "just  to  be  alone 
.with  you.  I  wish  we  could  live  on  a  desert  island!"  .  .  . 

Down  in  the  studio,  Mr.  Houghton,  smoking  up  to  the 
fire  limit  a  cigar  grudgingly  permitted  by  his  wife  ("It's 
your  eighth  to-day,"  she  reproached  him),  Henry  Hough- 
ton,  listening  to  his  Mary's  account  of  the  talk  in  the 
orchard,  told  her  what  he  thought  of  her:  "May  you  be 
;. forgiven!  Your  intentions  are  doubtless  excellent,  but 
your  truthfulness  leaves  something  to  be  desired :  '  Years 
won't  make  any  difference'?  Mary!  Mary!" 

But  she  defended  herself:  "I  mean,  'years'  can't 
kill  love — the  highest  love — the  love  that  grows  out 
of,  and  then  outgrows,  the  senses!  The  body  may  be  just 


'74  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

an  old  glove — shabby,  maybe;  but  if  the  hand  inside  the 
glove  is  alive,  what  real  difference  does  the  shabbiness 
make?  If  Eleanor's  mind  doesn't  get  rheumatic,  and  if  she 
will  for  get  herself! — they'll  be  all  right.  But  if  she  thinks  of 
herself — "  Mary  Houghton  sighed;  her  husband  ended 
iier  sentence  for  her: 

"She'll  upset  the  whole  kettle  of  fish?" 

"What  I'm  afraid  of,"  she  said,  with  a  troubled  look, 
*'is  that  you  are  right: — she's  inclined  to  be  jealous.  I 
saw  her  frown  when  he  was  playing  checkers  with  Edith. 
I  wanted  to  tell  her,  but  didn't  dare  to,  that  jealousy  is  as 
amusing  to  people  who  don't  feel  it,  as  it  is  undignified  in 
people  who  do." 

"My  darling,  you  are  a  brute,"  said  Mr.  Houghton; 
"I  have  long  suspected  it,  in  re  tobacco.  As  for  Eleanor,  I 
would  never  have  such  cruel  thoughts!  /  belong  to  the 
gentler  sex.  I  would  merely  refer  her  to  Mr.  F.'s  aunt." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

'"PHEY  reached  Mercer  in  the  rainy  October  dusk. 
1  It  was  cold  and  raw,  and  a  bleak  wind  blew  up  the 
river,  which,  with  its  shifting  film  of  oil,  bent  like  a  brown 
arm  about  the  grimy,  noisy  town.  The  old  hotel,  with 
its  Doric  columns  grimed  with  years  of  smoky  river  fogs, 
was  dark,  and  smell  ed  of  soot;  and  the  manners  of  the 
waiters  and  chambermaids  would  have  set  Eleanor's  teeth 
on  edge,  except  that  she  was  so  absorbed  in  the  thrill  of 
being  back  under  the  roof  which  had  sheltered  them  in 
those  first  days  of  bliss. 

"Do  you  remember?"  she  said,  significantly. 

Maurice,  looking  after  suitcases  and  hand  bags,  said, 
absently,  "Remember  what?"  She  told  him  "what"  and 
he  said:  "Yes.  Where  do  you  want  this  trunk  put, 
Eleanor?" 

She  sighed;  to  sentimentalize  and  receive  no  response 
in  kind,  is  like  sitting  down  on  a  chair  which  isn't  there. 
After  dinner,  when  she  and  Maurice  came  up  to  their 
room,  which  had  fusty  red  hangings  and  a  marble-topped 
center  table  standing  coldly  under  a  remote  chandelier, 
she  sighed  again,  for  Maurice  said  that,  as  for  this  hole  of 
a  hotel,  the  only  thing  he  thought  of,  was  how  soon  they 
could  get  out  of  it!  "I  can  get  that  little  house  I  told  you 
about,  only  it's  rather  out  of  the  way.  Not  many  of  your 
kind  of  people  'round!" 

She  knelt  down  beside  him,  pushing  his  newspaper  aside 
and  pressing  her  cheek  against  his.  "That  doesn't  make 
any  difference!"  she  said;  "I'm  glad  not  to  know  any- 
body. I  just  want  you!  I  don't  want  people. " 

"Neither  do  I,"  Maurice  agreed;  "I'd  have  to  shell  out 
my  cigars  to  'em  if  they  were  men ! " 
6 


76  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

"Oh,  is  that  your  reason?"  she  said,  laughing. 

"Say,  Star,  would  you  mind  moving?  I  was  just  read- 
ing-" 

She  rose,  and,  going  over  to  the  window,  stood  looking 
out  at  the  streaming  rain  in  one  of  those  empty  silences 
which  at  first  had  been  so  alluringly  mysterious  to  him. 
She  was  waiting  for  his  hand  on  her  shoulder,  his  kiss  on 
her  hair — but  he  was  immersed  in  his  paper.  "How  can 
he  be  interested  about  football,  now,  when  we're  alone?" 
she  thought,  wistfully.  Then,  to  remind  him  of  lovelier 
things,  she  began  to  sing,  very  softly: 

"Art  them  poor,  yet  hast  thou  golden  slumbers? 

O  sweet  content! 

To  add  to  golden  numbers,  golden  numbers, 
O  sweet  content. — 0  sweet,  O  sweet  content — " 

He  dropped  his  paper  and  listened — and  it  seemed  as  if 
music  made  itself  visible  in  his  ardent,  sensitive  face! 
After  a  while  he  got  up  and  went  over  to  the  window, 
and  kissed  her  gently.  .  .  . 

Maurice  was  very  happy  in  these  first  months  in 
Mercer.  The  Weston  office  liked  him — and  admired-  him, 
also,  which  pleased  his  young  vanity! — though  he  was 
jeered  at  for  an  incorrigible  and  alarming  truthfulness 
which  pointed  out  disadvantages  to  possible  clients,  but 
which — to  the  amazement  of  the  office — frequently  made 
a  sale!  As  a  result  he  acquired,  after  a  while,  several 
small  gilt  hatchets,  presented  by  the  "boys,"  and  also 
the  nickname  of  "G.  Washington."  He  accepted  these 
tributes  with  roars  of  laughter,  but  pointed  to  results: 
"7  get  the  goods!"  So,  naturally,  he  liked  his  work — 
he  liked  it  very  much!  The  joy  of  bargaining  and  his 
quick  and  perhaps  dangerously  frank  interest  in  clients  as 
personalities,  made  him  a  most  beguiling  salesman;  as  a 
result  he  became,  in  an  astonishingly  short  time,  a  real 
force  in  the  office;  all  of  which  hurried  him  into  maturity. 
But  the  most  important  factor  in  his  happiness  was  his 
adoration  of  Eleanor.  He  was  perfectly  contented,  evening 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  77 

after  evening  in  the  hotel,  to  play  her  accompaniments 
(on  a  rented  piano),  read  poetry  aloud,  and  beat  her  at 
solitaire.  Also,  she  helped  him  in  his  practicing  with  a 
certain  sweet  authority  of  knowledge,  which  kept  warm 
in  his  heart  the  sense  of  her  infinite  superiority.  So  when, 
later,  they  found  a  house,  he  entered  very  gayly  upon  the 
first  test  of  married  life — house  furnishing!  It  was  then 
that  his  real  fiber  showed  itself.  It  is  a  risky  time  for  all 
husbands  and  wives,  a  time  when  it  is  particularly  neces- 
sary to  "consider  the  stars " !  It  needs  a  fine  sense  of  pro- 
portion as  to  the  value,  relatively,  of  peace  and  personal 
judgment,  to  give  up  one's  idea  in  regard,  say,  to  the  color 
of  the  parlor  rug.  Maurice's  likes  and  dislikes  were  em- 
phatic as  to  rugs  and  everything  else, — but  his  sense  of 
proportion  was  sound,  so  Eleanor's  taste, — and  peace, — 
prevailed.  It  was  good  taste,  so  he  really  had  nothing  to 
complain  of,  though  he  couldn't  for  the  life  of  him  see  why 
she  picked  out  a  picture  paper  for  a  certain  room  in  the  top 
of  the  house!  "I  thought  I'd  have  it  for  a  smoking  room," 
he  said,  ruefully;  "and  a  lot  of  pink  lambs  and  green 
chickens  cavorting  around  don't  seem  very  suitable.  Still, 
if  you  like  it,  it's  all  right!"  The  memory  of  the  night  on 
the  mountain,  when  Eleanor  gave  all  she  had  of  strength 
and  courage  and  fear  and  passion  to  the  saving  of  his  life — 
made  pink  lambs,  or  anything  else,  "all  right " !  When  the 
house-furnishing  period  was  over,  and  they  settled  down, 
the  "people"  Eleanor  didn't  want  to  see,  seemed  to  have 
no  particular  desire  to  see  them;  so  their  solitude  of  two 
(and  Bingo,  who  barked  whenever  Maurice  put  his  arms 
around  Eleanor)  was  not  broken  in  upon — which  made  for 
domestic,  even  if  stultifying,  content.  But  the  thing  that 
really  kept  them  happy  during  that  first  rather  dangerous 
year,  was  the  smallness  of  their  income.  They  had  very 
little  money;  even  with  Eleanor's  six  hundred,  it  was 
nearer  two  thousand  dollars  than  three,  and  that,  for  peo- 
ple who  had  always  lived  in  more  or  less  luxury,  was  very 
nearly  poverty; — for  which,  of  course,  they  had  reason,  so 
far  as  married  happiness  went,  to  thank  God !  If  there  are 


78  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

no  children,  it  is  the  limited  income  which  can  be  most 
certainly  relied  upon  to  provide  the  common  interest  which 
welds  husband  and  wife  together.  This  more  or  less  un- 
comfortable, and  always  anxious,  interest,  generally  de- 
velops in  that  critical  time  when  the  heat  of  passion  has 
begun  to  cool,  and  the  friction  of  the  commonplace  pro- 
duces a  certain  warmth  of  its  own.  These  are  the  days 
when  conjugal  criticism,  which  has  been  smothered  under 
the  undiscriminating  admiration  of  first  love,  begins  to 
raise  its  head — an  ugly  head,  with  a  mean  eye,  in  which 
there  is  neither  imagination  nor  humor.  When  this  criti- 
cism begins  to  creep  into  daily  life,  and  the  lure  of  the  bare 
shoulder  and  perfumed  hair  lessens — because  they  are  as 
assured  as  bread  and  butter! — it  is  then  that  this  saving 
unity  of  purpose  in  acquiring  bread  and  butter  comes  to 
the  rescue. 

It  came  to  the  rescue  of  Maurice  and  Eleanor;  they  had 
many  welding  moments  of  anxiety  on  his  part,  and  eager 
self-sacrifice  on  her  part;  of  adding  up  columns  of  figures, 
with  a  constantly  increasing  total,  which  had  to  be  sub- 
tracted from  a  balance  which  decreased  so  rapidly  that 
Eleanor  felt  quite  sure  that  the  bank  was  cheating  them! 
Of  course  they  did  not  appreciate  the  value  of  this  blessed 
young  poverty — who  of  us  ever  appreciates  poverty  while 
we  are  experiencing  it?  We  only  know  its  value  when  we 
look  back  upon  it !  But  they  did — or  at  least  Eleanor  did — 
appreciate  their  isolation,  never  realizing  that  no  human 
life  can  refresh  another  unless  it  may  itself  drink  deep  of 
human  sympathies  and  hopes.  Maurice  could  take  this 
refreshment  through  business  contacts;  but,  except  for 
Mrs.  O'Brien,  and  her  baby  grandson,  Don,  Eleanor's 
acquaintances  in  Mercer  had  been  limited  to  her  aunt's 
rather  narrow  circle. 

When  Mrs.  Newbolt  got  back  from  Europe,  Maurice 
was  introduced  to  this  circle  at  a  small  dinner  given  to  the 
bride  and  groom  to  indicate  family  forgiveness.  The 
guests  were  elderly  people,  who  talked  politics  and  surgical 
operations,  and  didn't  know  what  to  say  to  Maurice, 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  79 

whose  blond  hair  and  good-humored  blue  eyes  made  him 
seem  distressingly  young.  Nor  did  Maurice  know  what  to 
say  to  them. 

"I'd  have  gone  to  sleep,"  he  told  Eleanor,  in  exploding 
mirth,  on  their  way  home,  "if  it  hadn't  been  that  the  food 
was  so  mighty  good !  I  kept  awake,  in  spite  of  that  ancient 
dame  who  hashed  up  the  Civil  War,  just  to  see  what  the 
next  course  would  be!" 

It  was  about  this  time  that  Maurice  began  to  show  a 
little  longing  for  companionship  (outside  the  office)  of  a 
kind  which  did  not  remember  the  Civil  War.  His  evenings 
of  solitaire  and  music  were  awfully  nice,  but — 

"Brown  and  Hastings  are  in  college,"  he  told  his  wife; 
"and  Mort's  on  a  job  at  his  father's  mills.  I  miss  'em  like 
the  devil." 

"7  don't  want  anyone  but  you,"  she  said,  and  the  tears 
started  to  her  eyes;  he  asked  her  what  she  was  crying 
about,  and  she  said,  "Oh,  nothing."  But  of  course  he  knew 
what  it  was,  and  he  had  to  remind  himself  that  "she 
had  nervous  prostration";  otherwise  that  terrible,  hidden 
word  "silly"  would  have  been  on  his  lips. 

Eleanor,  too,  had  a  hidden  word;  it  was  the  word 
"boy."  It  was  Mrs.  Newbolt  who  thrust  it  at  her,  in  those 
first  days  of  settling  down  into  the  new  house.  She  had 
come  in,  waddling  ponderously  on  her  weak  ankles,  to 
see,  she  said,  how  the  young  people  were  getting  along: 
"At  least,  one  of  you  is  young!"  Mrs.  Newbolt  said, 
jocosely.  She  was  still  puffing  from  a  climb  upstairs,  to 
find  Eleanor,  dusty  and  disheveled,  in  a  little  room  in 
the  top  of  the  house.  She  was  sitting  on  the  floor  in  front 
of  a  trunk,  with  Bingo  fast  asleep  on  her  skirt. 

"What's  this  room  to  be?"  said  Mrs.  Newbolt;  then 
looked  at  the  wall  paper,  gay  with  prancing  lambs  and 
waddling  ducks,  and  Noah's  Ark  trees.  "What!  a  nurs- 
ery?" said  Mrs.  Newbolt;  "do  you  mean — ?" 

"No,"  Eleanor  said,  reddening;  "oh  no!  I  only  thought 
that  if—  " 

"You  are  forehanded,"  said  Mrs.  Newbolt,  and  was 


8o  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

silent  for  almost  a  minute.  The  vision  of  Eleanor  choosing 
a  nursery  paper,  for  little  eyes  (which  might  never  be 
born !)  to  look  upon,  touched  her.  She  blinked  and  swal- 
lowed, then  said,  crossly:  "You're  thinner!  For  heaven's 
sake  don't  lose  your  figger!  My  dear  grandmother  used 
to  say — I  can  see  her  now,  skimmin'  milk  pans,  and  then 
runnin'  her  finger  round  the  rim  and  lickin'  it.  She  was  a 
Dennison.  I've  heard  her  say  to  her  daughters,  'I'd 
rather  have  you  lose  your  virtue  than  lose  your  figger ' ;  and 
my  dear  grandfather — your  great-grandfather — wore  knee 
breeches;  he  said — well,  I  suppose  you'd  be  shocked  if  I 
told  you  what  he  said  ?  He  said, '  If  a  gal  loses  one,  she — ' 
No;  I  guess  I  won't  tell  you.  Old  maids  are  so  refined! 
He  wasn't  an  old  maid,  I  can  tell  you !  I  brought  a  choco- 
late drop  for  Bingo.  Have  you  a  cook?" 

Eleanor,  gasping  with  the  effort  to  keep  up  with  the 
torrent,  said,  "Yes;  but  she  doesn't  know  how  to  do 
things." 

Mrs.  Newbolt  raised  pudgy  and  protesting  hands. 
"Get  somebody  who  can  do  things!  Come  here,  little 
Bingo !  Eleanor,  if  you  don't  feed  that  boy,  you'll  lose  him. 
I  remember  puffectly  well  hearin'  my  dear  father  say,  '  If 
you  want  to  catch  a  man's  heart,  set  a  trap  in  his  stomach. ' 
Bingo !  Bingo ! "  (The  little  dog,  standing  on  his  hind  legs, 
superciliously  accepted  a  chocolate  drop — then  ran  back 
to  Eleanor.)  ' '  Maurice  will  be  a  man  one  of  these  days,  and 
a  man  can't  live  on  love;  he  wants  'wittles  and  drink.' 
When  I  married  your  uncle  Thomas,  my  dear  father  said, 
i  'Feed  him — and  amuse  him.'  So  I  made  up  my  mind  on 
(my  weddin'  day  to  have  good  food  and  be  entertainin'. 
!  And  I  must  say  I  did  it !  I  fed  your  dear  uncle,  and  I  talked 
to  him,  until  he  died."  She  paused,  and  looked  at  the 
paper  on  the  wall.  "I  hope  the  Lord  will  send  you  children ; 
it  will  help  you  hold  the  boy — and  perhaps  you'll  be  more 
efficient!  You'll  have  to  be,  or  they'll  die.  Get  a  cook." 
Then,  talking  all  the  way  downstairs,  she  trundled  off,  in 
angry,  honest,  forgiving  anxiety  for  her  niece's  welfare. 

Eleanor,  planning  for  the  little  sunny  room,  felt  bruised 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  Si 

by  that  bludgeon  word — which,  as  it  happened,  was  not 
accurate,  for  Maurice,  by  this  time,  had  gained  a  maturity 
of  thought  and  patience  that  put  him  practically  out  of 
boyhood.  When  Eleanor  repeated  her  caller's  remarks  to 
him,  she  left  that  one  word  out;  "Auntie  implied,"  she 
said,  "that  you  wouldn't  love  me,  if  you  didn't  have 
fancy  cooking." 

"She's  a  peach  on  cooking  herself,"  declared  Maurice; 
"but,  as  far  as  my  taste  goes,  I  don't  give  a  hoot  for  night- 
ingales' tongues  on  toast." 

So,  as  fancy  cooking  was  not  a  necessity  to  Maurice, 
and  as  he  had  resigned  himself  to  an  absence  of  any  social 
life,  and  didn't  really  mind  smoking  in  a  room  with  a 
silly  paper  on  the  walls  (he  had  been  very  much  touched 
when  Eleanor  told  him  what  the  paper  meant  to  her  in 
hope,  and  unsatisfied  longing),  he  was  perfectly  contented 
in  the  ugly  little  house  in  the  raw,  new  street.  In  point 
of  fact,  music  and  books  provided  the  Bread  of  Life  to 
Maurice — with  solitaire  thrown  in  as  a  pleasant  extra! — 
so  "wittles  and  drink"  did  not  begin  to  be  a  consideration 
until  the  first  year  of  married  life  had  passed.  Eleanor 
remembered  the  date  when — because  of  something  Mau- 
rice said — she  began  to  realize  that  they  must  be  consid- 
ered. It  was  on  the  anniversary  of  their  wedding — a 
cloudy,  cold  day;  but  all  the  same,  with  valiant  sentimen- 
tality, they  went — Bingo  at  their  heels — to  celebrate,  in 
the  meadow  of  those  fifty-four  minutes  of  married  life.  As 
they  crossed  the  field,  where  the  tides  of  blossoming  grass 
ebbed  and  flowed  in  chilly  gusts  of  wind,  they  reminded 
each  other  of  the  first  time  they  had  come  there,  and  of 
every  detail  of  the  elopement.  When  they  sat  down  under 
the  locust  tree,  Eleanor  opened  her  pocketbook  and  showed 
him  the  little  grass  ring,  lying  flat  and  brittle  in  a  small 
envelope;  and  he  laughed,  and  said  when  he  got  rich  he 
would  buy  her  a  circle  of  emeralds! 

"It's  confoundedly  cold,"  he  said;  "b-r-r!  ...  Oh,  I 
must  tell  you  the  news:  I  got  one  in  on  'em  at  the  office 
this  morning :  Old  West  has  been  stung  on  a  big  block  on 


82  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

Taylor  Street.  Nothing  doing.  No  tenants.  I've  been 
working  on  a  fellow  for  a  month,  and,  by  George!  I've 
landed  him !  I  told  him  the  elevator  service  was  rotten — 
and  one  or  two  other  pretty  little  things  they've  been 
sliding  over,  gracefully,  at  the  office;  but  I  landed  him! 
Say,  Nelly,  Morton  asked  me  to  go  to  a  stag  party  to- 
morrow night ;  do  you  mind  if  I  go  ? " 

She  smiled  vaguely  at  his  truthtelling;  then  sighed, 
and  said,  "Why,  no;  if  you  want  to.  Maurice,  do  you 
remember  you  said  we'd  come  back  here  for  our  golden 
wedding?" 

"So  I  did!  I'd  forgotten.  Gosh !  maybe  we'll  be  grand- 
parents by  that  time!"  The  idea  seemed  to  him  infinitely 
humorous ,  but  she  winced.  ' '  What  a  memory  you  have ! ' ' 
he  said.  "You  ought  to  be  in  Weston's!  They'd  never 
catch  you  forgetting  where  some  idiot  left  the  key  of  the 
coal  bin." 

"I  sang  'Kiss  thy  perfumed  garments';  remember?" 

"  'Course  I  do.   Hit  'em  again." 

She  laughed,  but  ruefully;  he  had  not  spoken  just  that 
way  a  year  ago.  She  noticed,  suddenly,  how  much  older 
he  looked  than  on  that  worshiping  day — still  the  blue, 
gay  eyes,  the  wind-ruffled  blond  hair,  the  hilarious 
laugh  that  displayed  the  very  white  teeth;  but  all  the 
same  he  looked  older  by  more  than  one  year:  his  mouth 
had  a  firmer  line;  his  whole  clean-cut  face  showed  re- 
sponsibility and  eager  manhood. 

Eleanor,  clasping  her  hands  around  her  knees,  and 
watching  the  grass  ebbing  and  flowing  in  the  wind,  sang, 
"O  Spring ! "  and  Maurice,  listening,  his  eyes  following  the 
brown  ripple  of  the  river  lisping  in  the  shallows  around 
the  sandbar,  and  flowing — flowing — like  Life,  and  Time, 
and  Love,  sighed  with  satisfaction  at  the  pure  beauty  of 
her  voice.  "The  notes  are  like  wings,"  he  said;  "give 
us  a  sandwich.  I'm  about  starved." 

They  spread  out  their  luncheon,  and  Maurice  expressed 
his  opinion  of  it:  "This  cake  is  the  limit!"  He  threw  a 
piece  of  it  at  the  little  dog.  "  There,  Bingo !  .  .  .  Eleanor, 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  83 

he's  losing  his  waist  line,.  But  this  cake  won't  fatten  him ! 
It's  sawdust." 

"Hannah  is  a  poor  cook,"  she  agreed,  nervously;  "but 
if  I  didn't  keep  her  I  don't  know  what  she  would  do,  she's 
so  awfully  deaf!  She  couldn't  get  another  place." 

"Why  don't  you  teach  her  to  do  things?  I  suppose  she 
thinks  we  can  live  on  love,"  he  said,  chuckling. 

She  bit  her  lip, — and  thought  of  Mrs.  Newbolt.  "Be- 
cause I  don't  know  how  myself,"  she  said. 

"Why  don't  you  learn?"  he  suggested,  feeding  the  rest 
of  his  cake  to  Bingo;  "Edith  used  to  make  bully  cake — " 

She  said,  with  a  worried  look,  that  she  would  try — 

Instantly  he  was  patient  and  very  gentle,  and  said 
that  the  cake  didn't  matter  at  all!  "But  I  move  we  try 
boarding." 

They  were  silent,  watching  the  slipping  gleam  on  the 
ripples,  until  Eleanor  said,  "Oh,  Maurice, — if  we  only  had 
a  child!" 

"Maybe  we  will  some  day,"  he  said,  cheerfully.  Then, 
to  tease  Bingo,  he  put  his  arms  around  his  wife  and 
hugged  her, — which  made  the  little  dog  burst  into  a  volley 
of  barks !  Maurice  laughed,  but  remembered  that  he  was 
hungry  and  said  again,  "Let's  board." 

Eleanor,  soothing  Bingo,  wild-eyed  and  trembling 
with  jealous  love,  said  no!  she  would  try  to  have  things 
better.  "Perhaps  I'll  get  as  clever  as  Edith,"  she  said — 
and  her  lip  hardened. 

He  said  he  wished  she  would:  "Edith  used  to  make  a 
chocolate  cake  I'd  sell  my  soul  for,  pretty  nearly!  Why 
didn't  Hannah  give  us  hard-boiled  eggs?"  he  pondered, 
burrowing  in  the  luncheon  basket  for  something  more 
to  eat ;  ' '  they  don't  take  brains ! ' ' 

Of  course  he  was  wrong;  any  cooking  takes  brains — 
and  nobody  seemed  able,  in  his  little  household,  to 
supply  them.  However,  boarding  was  such  a  terrible 
threat,  that  Eleanor,  dismayed  at  the  idea  of  leaving  that 
little  room,  waiting  at  the  top  of  the  house,  with  its  ducks 
shepherdesses;  and  thinking,  too,  of  a  whole  tableful 


84  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

of  people  who  would  talk  to  Maurice!  made  heroic  efforts 
to  help  Hannah,  her  mind  fumbling  over  recipes  and 
ingredients,  as  her  hands  fumbled  over  dishes  and  oven 
doors  and  dampers.  She  only  succeeded  in  burning  her 
wrist  badly,  and  making  the  deaf  Hannah  say  she  didn't 
want  a  lady  messing  up  her  kitchen. 

By  degrees,  however,  "living  on  love"  became  more 
and  more  uncomfortable,  and  in  October  the  fiasco  of  a 
little  dinner  for  Henry  Houghton  made  Maurice  say  defi- 
nitely that,  when  their  lease  expired,  they  would  board. 
Mr.  Houghton  had  come  to  Mercer  on  business,  bringing 
Edith  with  him,  as  a  sort  of  spree  for  the  child;  and  when 
he  got  home  he  summed  up  his  experience  to  his  Mary : 

"That  daughter  of  yours  will  be  the  death  of  me !  There 
was  one  moment  at  dinner  when  only  the  grace  of  God 
kept  me  from  wringing  her  neck.  In  the  first  place,  she 
commented  upon  the  food — which  was  awful! — with  her 
usual  appalling  candor.  But  when  she  began  on  the 
'fcarp'-" 

"Harp?"     Mary  Houghton  looked  puzzled. 

"I  won't  go  to  their  house  again !  I  detest  married  peo- 
ple who  squabble  in  public.  Let  'em  scratch  each  other's 
eyes  out  in  private  if  they  want  to,  the  way  we  do!  But 
I'll  be  hanged  if  I  look  on.  She  calls  him  'darling'  when- 
ever she  speaks  to  him.  She  adores  him, — poor  fellow !  I 
tell  you,  Mary,  a  mind  that  hasn't  a  single  thought  except 
love  must  be  damned  stupid  to  live  with.  I  wished  I  was 
asleep  a  dozen  times." 

Maurice,  too,  at  his  own  dinner  table,  had  "wished  he 
was  asleep." 

In  the  expectation  of  seeing  Mr.  Houghton,  Eleanor  had 
planned  an  early  and  extra  good  dinner,  after  which  they 
meant  to  take  their  guests  out  on  the  river  and  float  down 
into  the  country  to  a  spot — green,  still,  in  the  soft  October 
days — from  which  they  could  look  back  at  the  city,  with 
its  myriad  lights  pricking  out  in  the  dusk,  and  see  the 
copper  lantern  of  the  full  moon  lifting  above  the  black 
line  of  the  hills.  Eleanor,  taught  by  Maurice,  ha.d  learned 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  85 

to  feel  the  strange  loveliness  of  Mercer's  ugliness,  and  it 
was  her  idea  that  Mr.  Houghton  should  feel  it,  too. 
"Edith's  too  much  of  a  child  to  appreciate  it,"  she  said. 

"She's  not  much  of  a  child;  she's  almost  fourteen!" 

"I  think,"  said  Eleanor,  "that  if  she's  fourteen,  she's 
too  old  to  be  as  free  and  easy  with  men — as  she  is  with 
you." 

"Me?  I'm  just  like  a  brother!  She  has  no  more  sense  of 
beauty  than  a  puppy,  but  she'll  like  the  boat,  provided 
she  can  row,  and  adore  you. " 

"Nonsense!"  Eleanor  said.  "Oh,  I  hope  the  dinner  will 
be  good." 

It  was  far  from  good ;  the  deaf  Hannah  had  scorched  the 
soup,  to  which  Edith  called  attention,  making  no  effort 
to  emulate  the  manners  of  her  father,  who  heroically  took 
the  last  drop  in  his  plate.  Maurice,  anxious  that  Eleanor's 
housekeeping  should  shine,  thought  the  best  way  to 
affirm  it  was  to  say  that  this  soup  was  vile,  "but  generally 
our  soup  is  fine!" 

"Maurice  thinks  Edith  is  a  wonderful  cook,"  Eleanor 
said;  her  voice  trembled. 

Something  went  wrong  at  dessert,  and  Edith  said,  gen- 
erously, that  she  "didn't  mind  a  bit ! "  It  was  at  that  point 
that  the  grace  of  God  kept  her  father  from  murdering  her, 
for,  in  a  real  desire  to  be  polite  and  cover  up  the  defective 
dessert,  she  became  very  talkative,  and  said,  wasn't  it 
funny  ?  When  she  was  little,  she  thought  a  harpy  played  on 
a  harp ;  "and  I  thought  you  had  a  harp,  because  father —  " 

"I'd  like  some  more  ice  cream!"  Mr.  Houghton  inter- 
rupted, passionately. 

' '  But  there's  salt  in  it ! "  said  Edith,  surprised.  To  which 
her  father  replied,  breathlessly,  that  he  believed  he'd  not 
go  out  on  the  river;  he  had  a  headache.  ("Mary  has  got 
to  do  something  about  this  child!") 

"I'll  go,"  Edith  announced,  cheerfully. 

"I  think  I'll  stay  at  home,"  Eleanor  said;  "my  head  is 
rather  inclined  to  ache,  too.  Mr.  Houghton ;  so  we'll  none 
of  us  go." 


86  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

"Me  and  Maurice  will,"  Edith  protested,  dismayed. 

Maurice  gave  an  anxious  look  at  Eleanor:  "It  might 
do  your  head  good,  Nelly?" 

"Oh,  let's  go  by  ourselves,"  Edith  burst  out ;  "I  mean," 
she  corrected  herself,  "people  like  father  and  Eleanor 
never  enjoy  the  things  we  do.  They  like  to  talk." 

"I'd  like  to  choke  you ! "  the  exasperated  father  thought. 
But  he  cast  a  really  frightened  eye  at  Eleanor,  who  grew 
a  little  paler.  There  was  some  laborious  talk  in  the  small 
parlor,  where  Eleanor's  piano  took  up  most  of  the  space: 
comments  on  the  weather,  and  explanations  of  Bingo's 
snarling.  ' '  He's  jealous, ' '  Eleanor  said,  with  amused  pride, 
and  stroking  the  little  faithful  head  that  pressed  so  closely 
against  her. 

At  which  Edith  began,  eagerly,  "Father  says — " 
("What  the  deuce  will  she  say  now?"  poor  Mr.  Houghton 
thought) — "Father  says  Rover  has  a  human  being's  hor- 
ridest  vice — jealousy." 

"I  don't  think  jealousy  is  a  vice,"  Eleanor  said,  coldly. 

Mr.  Houghton,  giving  his  offspring  a  terrible  glance,  said 
that  he  must  go  back  to  the  hotel  and  take  something 
for  his  headache;  "And  don't  keep  that  imp  out  too  late, 
Maurice.  You  want  to  get  home  and  take  care  of 
Eleanor." 

"Oh  no;  he  doesn't,"  Eleanor  said,  and  shook  hands 
with  her  embarrassed  guest,  who  was  saying,  under  his 
breath,  "What  taste!" 

Out  in  the  street  Maurice  hurried  so  that  Edith,  tuck- 
ing, unasked,  her  hand  through  his  arm,  had  to  skip  once 
or  twice  to  keep  up  with  him.  .  .  .  "Maurice,"  she 
said,  breathlessly,  "will  you  let  me  row?" 

"O  Lord— yes!   I  don't  care." 

After  that  Edith  did  all  the  talking,  until  they  reached 
the  wharf  where  Maurice  kept  his  boat;  when  Edith  had 
secured  the  oars  and  they  pushed  off,  he  took  the  tiller 
ropes,  and  sat  with  moody  eyes  fixed  on  the  water.  The 
mortification  of  the  dinner  was  gnawing  him ;  he  was  think- 
ing of  the  things  he  might  have  said  to  bring  Eleanor  to 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  87 

her  senses!  Yet  he  realized  that  to  have  said  anything 
would  have  added  to  Mr.  Houghton's  embarrassment. 
"I'll  have  it  out  with  her  when  I  get  home,"  he  thought, 
hotly.  "Edith  started  the  mess;  why  did  she  say  that 
about  Mr.  Houghton  and  Eleanor?"  He  glanced  at  her, 
and  Edith,  rowing  hard,  saw  the  sudden  angry  look,  and 
was  so  surprised  that  she  caught  a  crab,  almost  keeled 
over,  laughed  loudly,  and  said,  "Goodness!"  which  was, 
at  that  time,  her  most  violent  expletive. 

"Maurice,"  she  demanded,  "did  you  see  that  lady  on 
the  float,  getting  into  the  boat  with  those  two  gentlemen? " 

Maurice  said,  absently:  "There  were  two  or  three  peo- 
ple round.  I  don't  know  which  you  mean." 

"The  young  one.  She  had  red  cheeks.  I  never  saw 
such  red  cheeks!" 

"Oh,"  said  Maurice ;"that  one?  Yes.  I  saw  her.  Paint." 

"On  her  cheeks?"  Edith  said,  with  round,  astonished 
eyes.  "Do  ladies  put  paint  on  their  cheeks?" 

Miserable  as  Maurice  was,  he  did  chuckle.  "No, 
Edith;  ladies  don't,"  he  said,  significantly.  (Such  was  the 
innocent  respectability  of  1903!) 

Edith  looked  puzzled:  "You  mean  she  isn't  a  lady, 
Maurice?" 

"Look  out!"  he  said,  jamming  the  tiller  over;  "you 
were  on  your  right  oar." 

"But,  Maurice,"  she  insisted,  "why  do  you  say  she  isn't 
a  lady?  .  .  .  Oh,  Maurice!  There  she  is  now!  See?  In 
that  boat?" 

"Well,  for  Heaven's  sake  don't  announce  it  to  the 
world ! "  Maurice  remonstrated.  "  Guess  I'll  take  the  oars, 
Edith.  I  want  some  exercise." 

Edith  sighed,  but  said,  "All  right."  She  wanted  to 
row;  but  she  wanted  even  more  to  get  Maurice  good- 
natured  again.  "He's  huffy,"  she  told  herself;  "he's  mad 
at  Eleanor,  and  so  am  I;  but  it's  no  sense  to  take  my  head 
off!"  She  hated  to  change  seats — they  drew  in  to  shore 
to  do  it,  a  concession  to  safety  on  Maurice's  part — for 
she  didn't  like  to  turn  her  back  on  the  red-cheeked  lady 


88  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

with  the  two  gentlemen  in  the  following  skiff;  however, 
she  did  it;  after  all,  it  was  Maurice's  boat,  and  she  was 
his  company;  so,  if  he  "wanted  to  row  her"  (thus  her 
little  friendly  thoughts  ran),  "why,  all  right!"  Still,  she 
hated  not  to  look  at  the  lady  that  Maurice  said  was  not  a 
lady.  "She  must  be  twice  as  old  as  I  am;  I  should  think 
you  were  a  lady  when  you  were  twenty-six,"  she  reflected. 

But  because  her  back  was  turned  to  the  "lady,"  she 
did  not,  for  an  instant,  understand  the  loud  splash  behind 
them,  and  Maurice's  exclamation,  "Capsized!"  The  jerk 
of  their  boat,  as  he  backed  water,  made  it  rock  violently. 
"Idiots!"  said  Maurice.  "Ill  pick  you  up!"  he  yelled, 
and  rowed  hard  toward  the  three  people,  now  slapping 
about  in  not  very  deep  water.  "Tried  to  change  seats, " — 
he  explained  to  Edith.  "I'm  coming!"  he  called  again. 

Edith,  wildly  excited  and  swaying  back  and  forth,  like 
a  coxswain  in  a  boat  race,  screamed:  "We're  coming! 
You'll  get  drowned — you'll  get  drowned!"  she  assured  the 
gasping,  bubbling  people,  who  were,  somehow  or  other, 
making  their  muddy  way  toward  the  shore. 

"Get  our  skiff,  will  you?"  one  of  the  "gentlemen" 
called  to  Maurice,  who,  seeing  that  there  was  no  danger 
to  any  of  the  immersed  merrymakers,  turned  and  rowed 
out  to  the  slowly  drifting  boat. 

"Grab  the  painter!"  he  told  Edith  as  he  gained  upon 
it;  she  obeyed  his  orders  with  prompt  dexterity.  "You 
can  always  depend  on  old  Skeezics,"  Maurice  told  himself, 
with  a  friendly  look  at  her.  He  had  forgotten  Eleanor's 
behavior,  and  was  trying  to  suppress  his  grins  at  the 
forlorn  and  dripping  people,  who  were  on  land  now,  shiver- 
ing, and  talking  with  astonishing  loudness. 

"Oh,  the  lady's  cheeks  are  coming  off!"  Edith  gasped, 
as  they  beached. 

Maurice,  shoving  the  trailing  skiff  on  to  its  owners,  said : 
"Can  I  do  anything  to  help  you?" 

"I'll  catch  my  death,"  said  the  lady,  who  was  crying; 
her  trickling  tears  and  her  sopping  handkerchief  removed 
what  remnants  of  her  "cheeks"  the  sudden  bath  in  the 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  89 

river  had  left.  As  the  paint  disappeared,  one  saw  how  very 
pretty  the  poor  draggled  butterfly  was — big,  honey-dark 
eyes,  and  quite  exquisite  features.  "Oh,  my  soul  and 
body! — I'll  die!"  she  said,  sobbing  with  cold  and  shock. 

"Here,"  said  Maurice,  stripping  off  his  coat;  "put 
this  on." 

The  girl  made  some  faint  demur,  and  the  men,  who 
were  bailing  out  their  half-filled  skiff,  said,  "Oh — she  can 
have  our  coafe." 

"They're  soaked,  aren't  they?"  Maurice  said;  "and  I 
don't  need  mine  in  the  least." 

Edith  gasped;  such  reckless  gallantry  gave  her  an 
absolutely  new  sensation.  Her  heart  seemed  to  lurch,  and 
then  jump;  she  breathed  hard,  and  said,  under  her  breath, 
' '  Oh,  my ! "  She  felt  that  she  could  never  speak  to  Maurice 
again;  he  was  truly  a  grown-up  gentleman!  Her  eyes 
devoured  him. 

"Do  take  it,"  she  heard  him  say  to  the  crying  lady, 
who  no  longer  interested  her;  "I  assure  you  I  don't 
need  it,"  he  said,  carelessly;  and  the  "lady"  reached  out 
a  small,  shaking  hand,  on  which  the  kid  glove  was  soaking 
wet,  and  said,  her  teeth  chattering,  that  she  was  awfully 
obliged. 

"Get  in — get  in ! "  one  of  the  " gentlemen "  said,  crossly, 
and  as  she  stepped  into  the  now  bailed-out  skiff,  she 
said  to  Maurice,  "Where  shall  I  return  it  to?" 

"I'll  come  and  get  it,"  Maurice  said — and  she  called 
across  the  strip  of  water  widening  between  the  two  boats : 

"I'm  Miss  Lily  Dale — "  and  added  her  street  and 
number. 

Maurice,  in  his  shirt  sleeves,  lifted  his  hat;  then  looked 
at  Edith  and  grinned.  "Did  you  ever  see  such  idiots? 
Those  men  are  chumps.  Did  you  hear  the  fat  one  jaw 
at  the  girl?" 

"Did  he?"  Edith  said,  timidly.  She  could  hardly  bear 
to  look  at  Maurice,  he  was  so  wonderful. 

But  he,  entirely  good-natured  again,  was  overflowing 
with  fun.  "Let's  turn  around,"  he  said,  "and  follow  'em! 


9o  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

That  fatty  was  rather  happy — did  you  get  on  to  that 
flask?" 

Edith  had  no  idea  what  he  meant,  but  she  said,  breath- 
lessly, "Yes,  Maurice."  In  her  own  mind  she  was  seeing 
again  that  princely  gesture,  that  marvelous  tossing  of  his 
own  coat  to  the  "lady"!  "He  is  exactly  like  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh,"  she  said  to  herself.  She  remembered  how  at 
Green  Hill  she  had  wanted  him  to  spread  his  coat  before 
Eleanor's  feet; — but  that  was  commonplace!  Eleanor  was 
just  a  married  person,  "like  mother."  This  was  a  wonder- 
ful drowning  lady!  Oh,  he  was  Sir  Walter!  Her  eyes 
were  wide  with  an  entirely  new  emotion — an  emotion 
which  made  her  draw  back  sharply  when  once,  as  he 
rowed,  his  hand  touched  hers.  She  was  afraid  of  that 
careless  touch.  Yet  oh,  if  he  would  only  give  her  some 
of  his  clothes!  Oh,  why  hadn't  she  fallen  into  the  water! 
Her  heart  beat  so  that  she  felt  she  could  not  speak.  It 
was  not  necessary;  Maurice,  singing  a  song  appropriate 
to  the  lady  with  the  red  cheeks,  was  not  aware  of  her 
silence. 

"I  bet,"  he  said,  "that  cad  takes  it  out  of  the  little 
thing!  She  looked  scared,  didn't  you  think,  Edith?" 

"Yes,  .  .  .  sir"  the  little  girl  said,  breathlessly. 

Maurice  did  not  notice  the  new  word;  "Sorry  not  to 
take  you  down  to  the  Point,"  he  said;  "but  I  ought  to 
keep  tabs  on  that  boat.  If  they  capsize  again,  somebody 
really  might  get  hurt.  She's  a — a  little  fool,  of  course; 
but  I'd  hate  to  have  the  fat  brute  drown  her,  and  he  looks 
capable  of  it." 

However,  trailing  along  in  the  deepening  dusk  behind 
the  fat  brute,  who  was  rowing  hard  against  the  current, 
they  saw  the  dripping  survivors  of  the  shipwreck  reach 
the  wharf  safely  five  minutes  ahead  of  them,  and  scurry 
off  into  the  darkness  of  the  street. 

Maurice,  in  high  spirits,  had  quite  forgiven  Eleanor. 
"I  meant  to  treat  you  to  ice  cream,  Skeezics,"  he  said, 
"but  I  can't  go  into  the  hotel.  Shirt  sleeves  wouldn't  be 
admitted  in  the  elegant  circles  of  the  Mercer  House!" 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  91 

Instantly  a  very  youthful  disappointment  readjusted 
things  for  Edith;  she  forgot  that  strange  consciousness 
which  had  made  her  shrink  from  his  careless  touch;  she 
had  no  impulse  to  say  "sir";  she  was  back  again  at  the 
point  at  which  the  red-cheeked  lady  had  broken  in  upon 
their  lives.  She  said,  frowning:  "My!  I  did  want  some 
ice  cream.  I  wish  you  hadn't  given  the  lady  your  coat!" 

When  Maurice  got  home,  he  found  a  repentant  Eleanor 
bathing  very  red  and  swollen  eyes. 

"How's  your  head?"  he  said,  as  he  came,  in  his  shirt 
sleeves,  into  her  room;  she,  turning  to  kiss  him  and  say 
it  was  better,  stopped  short. 

"  Maurice !  Where's  your  coat  ? " 

His  explanation  deepened  her  repentance;  "Oh,  Mau- 
rice,— if  you've  caught  cold!" 

He  laughed  and  hugged  her  (at  which  Bingo,  in  his 
basket,  barked  violently);  and  said,  "The  only  thing 
that  bothered  me  was  that  I  couldn't  treat  Edith  to  ice 
cream." 

Eleanor's  face,  passionately  tender,  changed  sharply: 
"Edith  is  an  extremely  impertinent  child!  Did  you  hear 
her,  at  dinner,  talk  about  jealousy?" 

He  looked  blank,  and  said,  "What  was  'impertinent'  in 
that  ?  Say,  Star,  the  girl  in  the  boat  was — tough ;  she  was 
painted  up  to  the  nines,  and  of  course  it  all  came  out  in 
the  wash.  And  Buster  said  her  '  cheeks  came  off ' !  But  she 
was  pretty,"  Maurice  ruminated,  beginning  to  pull  off 
his  boots. 

"I  don't  see  how  you  can  call  a  painted  woman 
'pretty,'"  Eleanor  said,  coldly. 

Maurice  yawned.  "She  seemed  to  belong  to  the  fat 
brute.  He  was  so  nasty  to  her,  I  wanted  to  punch  hi3 
head." 

"Poor  girl!"  Eleanor  said,  and  her  voice  softened. 
"Perhaps  I  could  do  something  for  her?  She  ought  to 
make  him  marry  her." 

Maurice  chuckled.  "Oh,  Nelly,  you  are  innocent!  No, 
my  dear;  she'll  paint  some  more,  and  then,  probably,  get 


92  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

to  drinking;  and  meet  one  or  two  more  brutes.  When  she 
gets  quite  into  the  gutter,  she'll  die.  The  sooner  the 
better!  I  mean,  the  less  harm  she'll  do." 

Eleanor's  recoil  of  pain  seemed  to  him  as  exquisite  as  a 
butterfly's  shrinking  from  some  harsh  finger.  He  looked 
at  her  tenderly.  "Star,  you  don't  know  the  world!  And 
I  don't  want  you  to." 

"I'd  like  to  help  her,"  Eleanor  said,  simply. 

"You?"  he  said;  "I  wouldn't  have  you  under  the  same 
roof  with  one  of  those  creatures!" 

His  sense  of  her  purity  pleased  her;  the  harem  idea  is, 
at  bottom,  pleasing  to  women;  they  may  resent  it  with 
their  intellect,  but  they  all  of  them  like  to  feel  they  are 
too  precious  for  the  wind  of  evil  realities  to  blow  upon. 
So,  honestly  enough,  and  with  the  childlike  joy  of  the 
woman  in  love,  she  played  up  to  the  harem  instinct, 
shrinking  a  little  and  asking  timid  questions,  and  making 
innocent  eyes;  and  was  kissed,  and  assured  she  was  a 
lovely  goose;  for  Maurice  played  up  to  his  part,  too,  with 
equal  honesty  (and  youth) — the  part  of  the  worldly-wise 
protector.  It  was  the  fundamental  instinct  of  the  human 
male ;  he  resents  with  his  intellect  the  idea  that  his  woman 
is  a  fool;  but  the  more  foolish  she  is  (on  certain  lines)  the 
more  important  he  feels  himself  to  be !  So  they  were  both 
very  contented,  until  Maurice  happened  to  say  again  that 
he  was  sorry  to  have  disappointed  Edith  about  the  ice 
cream. 

"She's  a  greedy  little  thing,"  Eleanor  said  from  her 
pillows ;  her  voice  was  irritated. 

"What  nonsense!"  Maurice  said;  "as  for  ice  cream, 
all  youngsters  like  it.  I  know  I  do!" 

"I  saw  her  hang  on  to  your  arm  as  you  went  down  the 
street,"  Eleanor  said.  "Mrs.  Houghton  ought  to  tell  her 
that  nice  girls  don't  paw  men!" 

"Eleanor!  She's  nothing  but  a  child,  and  I'm  her 
brother — " 

"You  are  not  her  brother." 

"Oh,  Eleanor,  don't  be  so — "  he  paused;  oh,  that 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  93 

dreadful  word  which  must  not  be  spoken! — "so  unrea- 
sonable," he  ended,  wearily.  He  lay  down  beside  her  in  the 
darkness,  and  by  and  by  he  heard  her  crying,  very  softly. 
"Oh,  lord!"  he  said;  and  turned  over  and  went  to  sleep. 

Thus  do  the  clouds  return  after  rain.  Yet  each  day  the 
sun  rises  again.  .  .  . 

At  breakfast  Eleanor,  with  a  pitying  word  for  the 
"poor  thing,"  reminded  her  husband  that  he  must  go  and 
get  his  coat. 

He  said,  "Gosh!  I'd  forgotten  it!"  and  added  that  he 
liked  his  eggs  softer.  He  would  have  "played  up"  again, 
and  smiled  at  her  innocence,  if  he  had  thought  of  it,  but 
he  was  really  concerned  about  his  eggs.  "Hannah  seems 
to  think  I  like  brickbats,"  he  said,  good-naturedly. 

Eleanor  winced;  " Poor  Hannah  is  so  stupid !  But  she's 
getting  deafer  every  day,  so  I  can't  send  her  away!" 
Added  to  her  distress  at  the  scorched  soup  of  the  night 
before,  was  this  new  humiliation  of  "brickbats;"  naturally 
she  forgot  the  "poor  thing." 

Maurice  almost  forgot  her  himself;  but  as  he  left  the 
office  in  the  afternoon  he  did  remember  the  coat.  At  the 
address  which  the  red-cheeked  lady  had  given  him,  he- 
found  her  card — "Miss  Lily  Dale" — below  a  letter  box  in 
the  tiled,  untidy  vestibule  of  a  yellow-brick  apartment 
house,  where  he  waited,  grinning  at  the  porcelain  ornate- 
ness  about  him,  for  a  little  jerking  elevator  to  take  him  up 
to  the  fourth  floor.  There,  in  a  small,  gay,  clean  parlor  of 
starched  lace  curtains,  and  lithographs,  and  rows  of  hya- 
cinth bulbs  just  started  in  blue  and  purple  glasses  on  the 
window  sill,  he  found  the  red-cheeked  young  lady,  rather 
white-cheeked.  Indeed,  there  were  traces  of  hastily  wiped- 
away  tears  on  her  pretty  face. 

"My  friend,  Mr.  Batty,  said  I  upset  the  boat,"  she 
said,  taking  the  coat  out  of  the  wardrobe  and  brushing  it 
briskly  with  a  capable  little  hand. 

The  coat  reeked  with  perfumery,  and  Maurice  said, 
"Phew!"  to  himself;  but  threw  it  over  his  arm,  and  said 
that  Mr.  Batty  had  only  himself  to  blame.  "A  man 


94  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

ought  to  know  enough  not  to  let  a  lady  move  about  in  a 
rowboat!" 

"Won't  you  be  seated?"  Lily  said;  she  lighted  a  ciga- 
rette, and  shoved  the  box  over  to  him,  across  the  varnished 
glitter  of  the  table  top. 

Maurice,  introducing  himself — "My  name's  Curtis"; — 
and,  taking  in  all  the  details  of  the  comfortable,  vulgar  lit- 
tle room,  sat  down,  took  a  cigarette,  and  said  it  was  a 
warm  day  for  October;  she  said  she  hated  heat,  and  he 
said  he  liked  winter  best.  .  .  .  Then  he  saw  a  bruise  on 
her  wrist  and  said:  "Why,  you  gave  yourself  a  dreadful 
knock,  didn't  you?  Was  it  on  the  rowlock?" 

Her  face  dropped  into  sullen  lines:  "It  wasn't  the  boat 
did  it." 

Maurice,  with  instant  discretion,  dropped  the  subject. 
But  he  was  sorry  for  her;  she  made  him  think  of  a  beaten 
kitten.  "You  must  take  care  of  that  wrist,"  he  said,  his 
blue  eyes  full  of  sympathy.  When  he  went  away  he  told 
himself  he  had  spotted  the  big  man  as  a  brute  the  minute 
he  saw  him.  The  "kitten"  seemed  to  him  so  pathetic  that 
he  forgot  Eleanor's  exquisiteness,  and  told  her  about  the 
bruised  wrist  and  the  reeking  coat,  and  how  pretty  the 
,girl  was. 

"I  don't  know  anything  vulgarer  than  perfumery!" 
his  wife  said,  with  a  delicate  shrug. 

Maurice  agreed,  adding,  with  a  grin,  that  he  had  noticed 
that  when  ladies  were  short  on  the  odor  of  sanctity,  they 
were  long  on  the  odor  of  musk. 

"  I  always  keep  dried  rose  leaves  in  my  bureau  drawers," 
Eleanor  said;  and  he  had  the  presence  of  mind  to  say, 
"You  are  a  rose  yourself!" 

A  husband's  "presence  of  mind"  in  addressing  his  wife 
is,  of  course,  a  confession;  it  means  they  are  not  one — 
for  nobody  makes  pretty  speeches  to  oneself!  However, 
Maurice's  "rose"  made  no  such  deduction. 


CHAPTER  IX 

IT  was  after  Mr.  Houghton  had  swallowed  the  scorched 
soup  and  meditated  infanticide,  that  boarding  became 
inevitable.  Several  times  that  winter  Maurice  said  that 
Hannah  "was  the  limit;  so  let's  board?" 

And  toward  spring,  in  spite  of  the  cavorting  lambs  and 
waddling  ducks  in  the  little  waiting,  empty  room  up- 
stairs, Eleanor  yielded.  "We  can  go  to  housekeeping 
again,"  she  thought,  "t/ — " 

So  the  third  year  of  their  marriage  opened  in  a  boarding 
house.  They  moved  (Bingo  again  banished  to  Mrs. 
O'Brien),  on  their  wedding  anniversary,  and  instead  of 
celebrating  by  going  out  to  "their  river,"  they  spent  a 
hot,  grimy  day  settling  down  in  their  third-floor  front. 

"If  people  come  to  see  us,"  said  Maurice,  ruefully, 
standing  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets  surveying  their 
new  quarters,  "they'll  have  to  sit  on  the  piano!" 

"Nobody  '11  come,"  Eleanor  said. 

Maurice's  eyes  narrowed:  "I  believe  you  need  'em, 
Nelly?  I  knock  up  against  people  at  the  office,  and  I 
know  several  fellows  and  girls  outside — " 

"What  girls?" 

"Oh,  the  fellows'  sisters;  but  you — " 

"I  don't  want  anybody  but  you!" 

Maurice  was  silent.  Two  years  ago,  when  Eleanor  had 
said  almost  the  same  thing:  she  was  willing  to  live  on  a 
desert  island,  with  him! — it  had  been  oil  on  the  flames  of 
his  love;  now,  it  puzzled  him.  He  didn't  want  to  live  on  a 
desert  island,  with  anybody!  He  needed  more  than  one 
man  "Friday,"  and  any  women  "Thursdays"  who  might 
come  along  were  joyously  welcomed.  "I  am  a  social 
beggar,  myself,"  he  said;  and  began  to  whistle  and  fuss 


96  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

about,  trying  to  bring  order  out  of  a  chaos  of  books  and 
photographs  and  sheet  music.  She  sat  watching  him — the 
alert,  vigorous  figure;  the  keen  face  under  the  shock  of 
blond  hair;  the  blue  eyes  that  crinkled  so  easily  into 
laughter.  Her  face  was  thinner,  and  there  were  rings  of 
fatigue  under  her  dark  eyes,  and  that  little  nursery  in  the 
house  they  had  left,  made  a  swelling  sense  of  emptiness  in 
her  heart.  ("If  I  see  any  awfully  pretty  nursery  paper 
this  winter,  I'll  buy  it,  and  have  it  ready, — in  case  we 
should  have  to  get  another  house,"  she  thought.)  "Oh, 
do  stop  whistling,"  she  said;  "it  goes  through  me!" 

"Poor  Nelly!"  he  said,  kindly,  and  stopped. 

The  astonishing  thing  about  the  "boarding-house  mar- 
riage," is  that  it  ever  survives  the  strain  of  the  woman's 
idleness  and  the  man's  discomfort!  But  it  does,  occasion- 
ally.  Even  this  marriage  survived  Miss  Ladd's  boarding 
house,  for  a  time.  At  first  it  went  smoothly  enough  be- 
cause Maurice  couldn't  blame  Eleanor's  cook,  and  Eleanor 
couldn't  say  that  "nothing  she  did  pleased  Maurice";  so 
two  reasons  for  irritability  were  eliminated;  but  a  new 
reason  appeared:  Maurice's  eager  interest  in  everything 
and  everybody — especially  everybody! — 'and  his  endless 
good  nature,  overflowed  around  the  boarding-house  table. 
Everyone  liked  him,  which  Eleanor  entirely  understood; 
but  he  liked  everyone, — which  she  didn't  understand. 

The  note  of  this  mutual  liking  was  struck  the  very  first 
night  when  Maurice  went  down  into  the  dingy  basement 
dining  room;  he  and  Eleanor  made  rather  a  sensation  as 
they  entered:  Eleanor,  handsome  and  silent,  produced  the 
impression  of  cold  reserve;  Maurice,  amiable  and  talka- 
tive, gave  a  little  shock  of  interest  and  pleasure  to  the 
fifteen  or  twenty  people  eating  indifferent  food  about  a 
table  covered  with  a  not  very  fresh  cloth.  Before  the  meal 
was  over  he  had  made  himself  agreeable  to  an  elderly 
woman  on  his  left,  ventured  some  drollery  to  a  pretty 
high-school  teacher  of  mathematics  opposite  him,  and 
.given  a  man  at  the  end  of  the  table  the  score.  When 
Eleanor  rose,  Maurice  had  to  rise,  too,  though  his  dessert 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  97 

was  not  quite  devoured;  and  as  the  couple  left  the  room 
there  was  a  murmur  of  pleasure: 

"A  real  addition  to  our  family,"  said  Miss  Ladd. 

The  bond  salesman  said,  "I  wonder  if  he'll  go  to  the 
ball  game  with  me  on  Saturday?  I'll  get  the  tickets." 

The  school-teacher  said,  "He's  awfully  good  looking." 

The  widow's  comment  was  only,  "Nice  boy." 

Upstairs  in  their  own  room,  Maurice  said:  "What 
pleasant  people!  Nelly,  let's  get  some  fun  out  of  this; 
don't  dash  up  here  the  minute  you  swallow  your  food!" 

She  wondered,  silently,  how  he  could  call  them  "pleas- 
ant"! To  her  they  were  all  rather  common,  pushing  per- 
sons, who  wanted  to  talk  to  Maurice.  But  as  her  one  desire 
was  to  do  what  he  liked,  she  really  did  try  to  help  him 
"get  some  fun  out  of  them."  Every  night  at  dinner  she 
smiled  laboriously  when  he  teased  the  teacher,  and  she 
listened  to  the  elderly  woman  in  mourning,  whose  clever 
talk  was  so  absorbing  to  Maurice  that  sometimes  he  didn't 
hear  his  wife  speaking  to  him!  Yes;  Eleanor  tried.  Yet, 
in  less  than  a  month  Maurice  found  himself  beside  a 
boarder  of  his  own  sex,  instead  of  Mrs.  Davis,  and  saw 
that  the  school-teacher  was  too  far  down  the  table  for 
jokes.  When  he  asked  why  their  seats  had  been  changed, 
Eleanor  said  she  had  felt  a  draught — which  caused  the 
widow  to  smile,  and  write  on  a  piece  of  paper  an  arith- 
metical statement:  "Selfishness  +  vanity  —  humor  = 
jealousy."  She  handed  it  to  the  teacher,  who  laughed  and 
shrugged  her  shoulders : 

"But  she's  awfully  in  love  with  him,"  she  conceded, 
under  her  breath. 

The  older  woman  shook  her  head:  "No,  my  dear;  she 
isn't.  No  jealous  woman  knows  the  meaning  of  love." 

But  Eleanor  did  not  see  Miss  Moore's  contemptuous 
smile,  or  Mrs.  Davis's  grave  glance.  One  of  the  pitiful 
things  about  jealous  people  is  that  they  don't  know  how 
amusing — or  else  boring — or  else  irritating — they  are  to 
an  observant  and  entirely  unsympathetic  world !  Eleanor 
had  no  idea  that  the  whole  tableful  of  people  knew  she 


98  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

was  jealous,  and  found  her  ridiculous.  She  only  knew 
that  Maurice  seemed  to  like  them — which  meant  that 
her  society  "wasn't  enough  for  him " !  So  she  tried  to  make 
it  enough  for  him.  At  dinner  she  talked  to  him  so  ani- 
matedly (and  so  personally)  that  no  one  else  could  get  a 
word  in  edgewise.  Dinner  over,  she  was  uneasy  until  she 
had  dragged  her  eager-eyed  young  husband  up  to  the  desert 
island  of  their  third-floor  front — a  dingy  room,  with  a 
black-marble  mantelpiece,  and  a  worn  and  frowzy  carpet. ' 
There  were  some  steel  engravings,  dim  under  their  old 
glasses,  on  the  wall, — Evangeline,  and  Lincoln's  Cabinet, 
and  Daniel  Webster  in  a  rumpled  shirt  and  a  long  swal- 
lowtail;— all  of  which  Eleanor's  looking-glass  and  the( 
mirrored  doors  of  a  black-walnut  wardrobe,  reflected  in 
multiplying  dullness. 

Maurice's  charming  good  nature  in  that  first  boarding 
winter  never  failed.  Eleanor's  silences — which  he  had 
long  since  discovered  were  merely  empty,  not  mysterious — 
were  at  least  no  tax  on  his  patience;  so  he  never  once 
called  her  "silly."  He  did,  occasionally,  feel  a  faint  un- 
easiness lest  people  might  think  she  was  older  than  he — 
which  was,  of  course,  the  beginning  of  self-consciousness 
as  to  what  he  had  done  in  marrying  her.  But  he  loved  her. 
He  still  loved  her.  ' '  She  isn't  very  well, ' '  he  used  to  defend 
her  to  Mrs.  Newbolt;  "she  nearly  killed  herself,  saving 
my  life.  She's  not  been  the  same  girl  since." 

"'Girl'?"  said  Mrs.  Newbolt;  "she's  exactly  the  same 
woman,  only  more  so  because  she's  older.  I  hope  she  won't 
lose  her  figger;  she's  gettin'  thin.  My  dear  grandmother 
— she  was  a  Dennison;  fat;  I  can  hear  her  now  talkin' 
to  her  daughters :  '  Girls !  Don't  lose  your  figgers ! '  She 
had  red  hair." 

Eleanor  had  not  lost  her  figure;  it  was  still  graciously 
erect,  and  with  lovely  curves  of  bosom  and  shoulders; 
but,  somehow,  she  seemed  older — older  even  than  she 
was !  Perhaps  because  of  her  efforts  to  be  girlish  ?  It  was 
as  if  she  wore  clothes  she  had  outgrown — clothes  that  were 
too  tight  and  too  short.  She  used  Maurice's  slang  without 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  99 

its  virile  appropriateness;  when  they  accepted  an  invita- 
tion from  one  of  Maurice's  new  acquaintances,  her  anxiety 
to  be  of  his  generation  was  pathetic — or  ludicrous,  as  one 
happened  to  look  at  it.  These  friends  of  Maurice's  seemed 
to  have  innumerable  interests  in  common  with  him  that 
she  knew  nothing  about — and  jokes !  How  tired  she  got  of 
their  jokes,  which  were  mostly  preposterous  badinage, 
expressed  with  entire  solemnity  and  ending  in  yells  of 
laughter.  Yet  she  tried  to  laugh,  too;  though  she  rarely 
knew  what  it  was  all  about.  There  is  nothing  which 
divides  the  generations  more  sharply  than  their  ideas  of 
humor.  But  Eleanor  tried,  very  pitifully  hard,  to  be  silly 
with  the  kind  of  silliness  which  Maurice  seemed  to  enjoy; 
but,  alas!  she  only  achieved  the  silliness  which  he — like 
every  husband  on  earth! — hated:  the  silliness  of  small 
jealousies.  Once  she  told  Maurice  she  didn't  like  those 
dinner  parties  that  his  friends  were  always  asking  them 
to, — "I  think  it's  nicer  here,"  she  said. 

And  he  said,  cheerfully :  "Don't  go !  I  don't  mind  going 
alone." 

"I  know  you  don't,"  she  said,  wistfully.  .  .  .  "Why 
can't  he  be  satisfied  to  stay  at  home  with  me?"  she  said 
once  to  her  aunt;  and  Mrs.  Newbolt  told  her  why: 

"Because  you  don't  interest  him.  Eleanor!  if  you  want 
to  keep  that  boy,  urge  him  to  go  out  and  have  a  good 
time,  without  you!"  Then  she  added  some  poignantly 
true  remarks:  "My  dear  father  used  to  say,  'Just  as 
many  men  are  faithless  to  their  wives  because  their  wives 
have  plain  minds,  as  because  other  women  have  pretty 
faces.'  Well,  I'm  afraid  poor  dear  mother's  mind  was 
plain ;  that's  why  I  always  made  an  effort  to  talk  to  your 
uncle,  and  be  entertainin'.  And  I'll  tell  you  another  thing 
— for  if  I  have  a  virtue  it's  candor — if  you  let  him  see 
you're  jealous,  he'll  make  it  worth  your  while!  You've 
got  a  rip  in  the  back  seam  of  your  waist.  No  man  ever 
keeps  on  lovin'  a  jealous  woman;  he  just  pretends  to,  to 
keep  the  peace." 

Of  course  this  was  as  unintelligible  to  Eleanor  as  it  is  to 


ioo  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

all  women  of  her  type  of  mind.  So,  instead  of  considering 
Maurice's  enjoyment  of  society,  she  committed  the  ab- 
surdity of  urging  him  to  enjoy  what  she  enjoyed — a 
solitude  of  two.  To  herself  she  explained  his  desire  to 
see  other  people,  by  saying  it  was  because  they  had  no 
children.  "When  we  have  a  child,  he  won't  want  to  be 
with  those  boys  and  girls !  Oh,  why  don't  we  have  a  baby?" 
Her  longing  for  children  was  like  physical  hunger.  But 
only  Mrs.  O'Brien  understood  it.  When  Eleanor  went,  in 
her  faithful  way,  two  or  three  times  a  week,  to  sing  to  little 
sickly  Don  (and  pet  the  boarding  and  rather  pining  Bingo), 
Mrs.  O'Brien,  listening  to  the  little  songs,  pretty  and  silly, 
would  draw  a  puckery  hand  over  her  eyes:  "She'd  ought 
to  have  a  dozen  of  her  own!  If  that  boy  don't  treat  her 
good,  I'll  iron  off  every  button  he's  got!" 

When  Eleanor  (hoping  for  a  baby)  worried  lest  Maurice's 
hopes,  too,  were  disappointed,  her  gentleness  to  him  was 
passionate  and  beseeching;  but  sometimes,  watching  his 
attention  to  other  people,  the  gentleness  grew  rigid  in 
an  accusation  that,  because  they  hadn't  a  child,  he  was 
"getting  tired  of  her"!  Whenever  she  said  this  foolish 
thing,  there  would  come,  afterward,  a  rain  of  repentant 
tears.  But  repentance  cannot  always  change  the  result 
of  foolish  words — and  the  result  is  so  often  out  of  propor- 
tion to  the  words !  As  Maurice  had  said  that  day  in  their 
meadow,  of  Professor  Bradley  and  the  banana  skin — a 
Tery  little  thing  "can  throw  the  switches,"  in  human  life! 

It  was  the  "little  thing"  of  a  lead  pencil,  in  keeping  the 
accounts  of  their  endless  games  of  solitaire,  that  threw 
the  switches  now,  for  Maurice  Curtis.  .  .  .  He  happened 
to  produce  a  very  soft  pencil,  which  he  had  borrowed,  he 
said,  "from  a  darned  pretty  woman  he  was  showing  a 
house  to,"  and  had  forgotten  to  return  to  her. 

Eleanor  said  it  seemed  to  her  bad  taste  to  talk  of  a 
strange  woman  that  way:  "If  she's  a  lady  she  wouldn't 
want  a  man  she  didn't  know  to  speak  so — so  lightly  of  her. " 

"I  have  yet  to  meet  one  of  your  sex  who  objects  to 
being  called  pretty,"  Maurice  said,  dryly. 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  101 

To  which  Eleanor  replied  that  she  preferred  a  hard 
lead  pencil,  anyhow, — but  her  wishes  seemed  to  be  of  no 
importance!  "You're  tired  of  me,  Maurice."  He  said, 
"Oh,  damn!"  She  said,  "I  won't  have  you  swear  at  me!" 

He  pushed  back  his  chair,  toppled  the  flimsy  table 
over,  scattering  all  the  cards  on  the  floor.  The  falling 
table  struck  her  knee;  she  screamed;  he  flung  out  of  the 
room — out  of  the  house,  into  the  hot  darkness  of  an 
August  night.  .  .  .  The  switches  were  thrown.  .  .  . 

Down  on  Tyler  Street  there  had  been  another  quarrel — 
as  trivial  as  the  difference  of  opinion  as  to  hard  and  soft 
lead  pencils,  and  again  human  lives  were  shifted  from  one 
track  to  another.  It  was  Lily  who  ran  out  into  the  dark- 
ness, and  wandered  through  the  streets;  then  strayed 
down  to  the  bridge  that  spanned  the  hurrying  black  water 
of  that  same  river  which,  two  years  before,  had  lisped 
and  laughed  under  Maurice  and  Eleanor's  happy  eyes. 
Lily,  watching  the  current,  thought  angrily  of  Batty — 
then  a  passing  elbow  jostled  her  and  some  one  said, 
"Beg  pardon!"  She  turned  and  saw  Maurice. 

"Well,  I  do  say!"  she  said;  and  Maurice,  pausing  at 
the  voice  in  the  dark,  began  a  brief,  "Excuse  me;  I 
stumbled —  "  saw  who  it  was,  and  said,  "Why,  Miss  Lily! 
How  are  you?  I  haven't  seen  you  for  an  age!" 

She  answered  with  some  small  jocosity;  then  suddenly 
struck  her  little  fist  on  the  railing.  "Well,  I'm  just  mis- 
erable; that's  how  I  am,  if  you  want  to  know!  Batty — 

Maurice  frowned.    "Has  that  pup  hurt  you?" 

She  nodded :  "I  don't  know  why  I  put  up  with  him ! " 

"Shake  him!"  he  advised,  good-naturedly. 

"I  'ain't  got  any  other  friend."  She  spoke  with  half- 
laughing  anger;  indeed,  she  was  so  pretty  and  so  plucky 
that  he  forgot,  for  a  moment,  the  irritation  at  Eleanor 
which  had  driven  him  out  into  the  night,  and  it  came  into 
his  mind  that  something  ought  to  be  done  for  girls  like 
this.  He  remembered  that  Eleanor  herself  had  said  so. 
"  Perhaps  I  could  do  something  for  her  ? "  Eleanor  had  said. 

"She  isn't  bad,"  he  thought,  looking  at  Lily;    "she's 


io2  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

just  a  fool,  like  alTof  'em.  But  there  ought  to  be  some  way 
of  fishing  'em  out  of  the  gutter,  before  they  get  to  the 
very  bottom.  Maybe  Eleanor  could  give  her  a  hand  up  ? " 
Then  he  asked  her  about  herself :  Had  she  friends  ?  Where 
did  her  family  live?  Could  she  do  any  work?  He  was  rather 
diverted  by  his  own  philanthropy,  but  it  seemed  to  him  that 
it  would  be  the  decent  thing  to  advise  the  girl,  seriously. 
"I'll  talk  to  her,"  he  thought.  "Come  on!"  he  said; 
"let's  hunt  up  some  place  and  have  something  to  eat." 

"I  ain't  hungry,"  she  said — then  saw  the  careless 
straightforwardness  of  his  face,  and  was  straightforward 
herself:  "I  guess  I'd  better  be  going  home." 

"Oh,  come  on,"  he  urged  her. 

She  yielded,  with  a  little  rollicking  chuckle;  and  as  they 
walked  toward  a  part  of  town  more  suitable  for  such 
excursions,  she  confided  to  him  she  was  twenty,  and  she'd 
been  "around"  for  a  year. 

("Twenty-five,  if  she's  a  day,"  he  thought.) 

They  strolled  along  for  several  blocks  before  discover- 
ing, in  the  purlieus  of  Tyler  Street,  a  dingy  "ice-cream 
parlor,"  eminently  fitted  for  interviews  with  the  Lilys  of 
the  locality.  At  a  marble-topped  table,  translucent  with 
years  of  ice-cream  rendezvous,  they  waited  for  his  order 
to  be  filled,  and  she  saw  the  amused  honesty  of  his  face 
and  he  saw  the  good  nature  of  hers;  which  made  him 
think  again  of  Eleanor's  wish  to  help  her. 

He  urged  some  indifferent  cake  upon  her,  and  joked 
about  how  many  saucers  of  ice  cream  they  could  consume 
between  them;  then  he  became  serious:  Why  didn't  she 
drop  Batty? 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "if  I  only  could  drop  him!  I  hate  him. 
He's  the  first  friend  I've  had." 

"Was  he  really  the — the  first?"  Maurice  said.  His 
question  was  the  old  human  interest  of  playing  with  fire, 
but  he  supposed  that  it  was  a  desire  to  raise  the  fallen. 

"Well,  except  .  .  .  there  was  a  man;  I  expected  to 
marry  him.  Then  Batty,  he  come  along." 

"I  see,"  said  Maurice.    "Where's  the  first  man?" 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  103^ 

"7  don't  know.    I  was  only  sixteen." 

"Damn  him!"  Maurice  said,  sympathetically.  He  was 
BO  moved  that  he  ordered  more  ice  cream;  then  it  oc- 
curred to  him  that  he  ought  to  let  her  know  that  he  was 
entirely  a  philanthropist.  "My  wife  and  I'll  help  you," 
he  said. 

"Oh  .  .  .  you're  married?  You're  real  young!"  she 
commented. 

"I'm  no  chicken.  My  wife  and  I  think  exactly  alike 
about  these  things.  Of  course  she's  not  a  prude.  She  un- ' 
derstands  life,  just  as  I  do.  And  she'd  love  to  be  a  real 
friend  to  you.  She'll  put  you  on  your  feet,  and  think  none 
the  worse  of  you.  Tell  me  about  yourself,"  he  urged, 
intimately;  he  felt  some  deep  satisfaction  stir  within  him, 
which  he  supposed  was  his  recognition  of  a  moral  pur- 
pose. But  she  drew  back  into  her  own  reserves. 

"They  always  ask  that,"  she  thought;  and  the  momen- 
tary reality  she  had  shown  hardened  into  the  easy  lying  of 
her  business :  she  told  this  or  that — the  cruel  father  of  fic- 
tion, who  tried  to  drive  her  into  marriage  with  the  rich 
old  man;  the  wicked  lover  who  destroyed  trusting  inno- 
cence; the  inevitable  jacilis  descensus — Batty  at  last.  And 
now  the  ice-cream  parlor  in  this  dirty  street,  with  the 
clear-eyed,  handsome,  amused  young  man,  who  had  for- 
gotten his  own  anger  in  the  impulse,  so  frequent  in  the 
very  young  and  very  upright  man,  to  "save"  some  little 
creature  of  the  gutter!  As  for  Maurice,  he  said  to  him- 
self, "She's  a  sweet  little  thing;  and  not  really  bad." 

He  was  right  there:  Lily  was  not  bad;  she  was  as  far 
from  sin  as  she  was  from  virtue — just  a  little,  unmoral, 
very  amiable  animal. 

As  for  Maurice,  he  continued  to  discuss  her  future  of 
rectitude  and  honor — his  imagination  reaching  in  a  bound 
amazing  heights.  Why  not  be  a  trained  nurse  ? — and  have 
a  hospital  of  her  own,  and  gather  about  her,  as  assistants, 
girls  who — "well,  had  had  a  tough  time  of  it,"  he  said, 
delicately.  As  he  talked,  fatigue  at  the  boredom  of  his 
highly  moral  sentiments  crept  into  her  face.  She  swallowed 


io4  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

an  occasional  yawn,  and  murmured  to  most  of  his  state- 
ments, "  Is  that  so  ? "  She  was  sleepy,  and  wished  he  would 
stop  talking.  .  .  . 

"Guess  I'll  be  going  along,"  she  said,  good-naturedly. 

"I'll  come  and  see  you  to-morrow,"  Maurice  said,  im- 
passioned with  the  idea  of  saving  her;  "then  I'll  tell 
you  what  my  wife  will  do  for  you." 

They  went  out  together  and  walked  toward  Lily's 
rooms;  but  somehow  they  both  fell  silent.  Lily  was  again 
afraid  of  Batty,  and  Maurice's  exhilaration  had  begun  to 
ebb ;  there  came  into  his  mind  the  bleak  remembrance  of 
the  overturned  table  and  Eleanor's  sobs.  .  .  . 

At  the  door  of  the  apartment  house  where  Lily  lived, 
she  said,  nervously,  "I'd  ask  you  to  come  in,  but  he — " 

"Oh,  I  understand;  I've  no  desire  to  meet  the  gentle- 
man! What  time  will  I  come  to-morrow,  when  he's  not 
around?" 

She  reflected,  uneasily:  "Well,  I  ain't  sure — " 

Before  she  could  finish,  Batty  loomed  up  beside  them. 
He  was  plainly  drunk.  "I  lost  my  key,"  he  said;  "and 
I've  been  waiting — " 

"Good  night,  Miss  Lily,"  Maurice  said, — "If  he's 
nasty  to  her,  I'll  go  back,"  he  thought.  He  was  only 
halfway  down  the  block  when  he  heard  a  little  piping 
scream — "O-o-o-w!  O-o-o-w!"  He  turned,  and  saw  her 
trying  to  pull  her  hand  away  from  Batty 's  twisting  grip: 
he  was  at  her  side  in  a  moment:  "Here!  Drop  it!"  he 
said,  sharply — and  landed  an  extremely  neat  blow  on  the 
drunken  man's  jaw.  Batty,  rubbing  his  cheek,  and  star- 
ing at  this  very  unexpected  assailant  in  profound  and 
giggling  astonishment,  slouched  into  the  house. 

"He  'most  twisted  my  hand  off!"  Lily  said;  "oh,  ain't 
he  the  beast?"  She  cringed  and  shook  her  bruised  wrist, 
then  gave  Maurice  an  admiring  look.  ' '  My  soul  and  body ! 
you  Ht  into  him  good!"  she  said;  "what  am  I  going  to 
do?  I'm  afraid  to  go  in." 

"If  I  had  a  house  of  my  own,"  Maurice  said,  "I'd  take 
you  home,  and  my  wife  would  look  after  you.  But  we 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  105 

are  boarding.  .  .  .  Haven't  you  some  friend  you  could  go 
to  for  to-night?  .  .  .  To-morrow  my  wife  will  come  and 
see  you,"  he  declared. 

"Oh,  gracious  me,  no!"  In  the  midst  of  her  anger  she 
couldn't  help  laughing.  ("He's  a  reg'lar  baby!"  she 
thought.)  "No;  your  wife's  a  busy  society  lady,  I'm  sure. 
Don't  bother  about  me.  I'll  just  wait  round  till  he  goes 
to  sleep."  She  dabbed  at  her  eyes  with  a  little  wet  ball 
of  a  handkerchief. 

"Here,  take  mine,"  he  said.  And  with  this  larger  and 
dryer  piece  of  linen,  she  did  manage  to  make  her  face 
more  presentable. 

"When  he's  asleep,  I'll  slip  in,"  she  said. 

"Well,  let's  go  and  sit  down  somewhere,"  Maurice  sug- 
gested. She  agreed,  and  there  was  some  haphazard  wan- 
dering about  in  the  darkness,  then  a  weary  sitting  on  a 
bench  in  the  park,  marking  time  till  Batty  would  surely 
be  asleep. 

"You  sure  handed  one  out  to  him,"  Lily  said. 

Maurice  chuckled  at  the  role  of  knight-errant  which 
she  seemed  to  discern  in  him,  but  he  talked  earnestly  of 
her  future,  and  once  or  twice,  soothed  by  his  voice,  she 
dozed — but  he  didn't  know  it.  Indeed,  he  told  himself 
afterward  that  her  silences  showed  how  his  words  were 
sinking  in!  "It  only  goes  to  prove,"  he  thought,  when  at 
midnight  he  left  her  at  her  own  door,  "that  the  flower  is  in 
all  of  them!  If  you  only  go  about  it  right,  you  can  bring 
their  purity  to  the  surface !  She  felt  all  I  said.  Eleanor  will 
be  awfully  interested  in  her." 

He  was  quite  sure  about  Eleanor;  he  had  entirely  for- 
given her;  he  wanted  to  wake  her  up,  and  sit  on  the  edge 
of  her  bed,  and  tell  her  of  his  evening,  and  what  a  glorious 
thing  it  would  be  to  lift  one  lovely  young  soul  from  the 
gutter. 


CHAPTER  X 

BUT  Eleanor  would  not  "wake  up."  Within  an  hour 
of  her  foolish  outbreak  she  had  begun  to  listen  for 
his  returning  step.  Then  she  went  to  bed  and  cried  and 
cried.  "He  doesn't  love  me,"  she  said,  over  and  over; 
and  once  she  said,  "it  is  because  I  am — "  But  she  didn't 
finish  this;  she  just  got  up  and  went  over  to  the  bureau 
and  stared  into  the  mirror;  she  even  lit  a  candle  and 
held  it  close  to  the  glass;  after  a  while  she  saw  what  she 
was  looking  for.  "Edith  tried  to  make  him  notice  them, 
that  first  summer  at  Green  Hill,"  she  thought. 

At  eleven  she  went  to  the  window  and  watched,  her 
eyes  straining  into  the  darkness.  When,  far  down  the 
street,  a  man's  figure  came  in  range,  she  held  her  breath 
until  it  walked  into  and  out  of  the  circling  glare  of  the 
arc  light — not  Maurice!  It  was  after  twelve  when  she 
saw  him  coming — and  instantly  she  flew  back  to  her  bed. 
When  he  entered  the  faintly  lighted  room,  Eleanor  was, 
apparently,  sound  asleep. 

"Star?" 

No  answer. 

He  leaned  over,  saw  the  droop  of  her  lip  and  the  puffed 
eyelids — and  drew  back.  Perhaps,  if  he  had  kissed  her, 
the  soft  lead  pencil  might  not  have  acted  as  Destiny; 
she  might  have  melted  under  the  forlorn  story  he  was  so 
eager  to  tell  her.  But  her  tear-stained  face  did  not  sug- 
gest a  kiss. 

In  the  morning  Eleanor  had  what  she  called  a  "bilious 
headache,"  and  when  Maurice  skirted  the  subject  of  the 
"flower"  she  was  too  physically  miserable  to  be  inter- 
ested. When  she  was  well  again,  the  opportunity — if  it 
was  an  opportunity! — was  lost;  her  interest  in  Lily  was 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  107' 

not  needed,  because  a  call  at  the  apartment  house  showed 
Maurice  that  Batty  was  forgiven.  So  he  forgot  his  desire 
to  lift  the  fallen,  in  more  of  those  arid  moments  with 
Eleanor;  reproaches — and  reconciliations!  Tears — and 
fire!  But  fires  gradually  die  down  under  tears,  no  matter 
how  one  spends  one's  breath  blowing  loving  words  on  the 
wet  embers !  Enough  tears  will  put  out  any  fire. 

Lily,  too,  was  shedding  angry  tears  in  those  days,  and 
they  probably  had  their  effect  in  cooling  Batty's  heart ;  for 
his  unpleasantness  finally  culminated  in  his  leaving  her, 
and  by  October  she  was  living  in  the  yellow-brick  apart- 
ment house  alone,  and  very  economically — yet  not  so  eco- 
nomically that  she  did  not  buy  hyacinth  bulbs  for  the  blue 
and  purple  glasses  on  her  sunny  window  sill. 

Once  Maurice,  remembering  with  vague  amusement  his 
reformatory  impulse,  went  to  see  her;  but  he  did  not  talk 
to  Eleanor  about  the  call.  By  this  time  there  were  days 
when  he  talked  as  little  as  possible  to  Eleanor  about  any- 
thing,— not  because  he  was  secretive — he  hated  secrecy! 
4 'It's  next  door  to  lying,"  he  thought,  faintly  disgusted  at 
himself, — but  because  she  seemed  to  feel  hurt  if  he  was 
interested  in  anyone  except  herself.  Maurice  had  passed 
the  point  which  had  seemed  so  terrible  at  Green  Hill, 
where  he  had  called  his  wife  "silly."  He  never  called  her 
silly  now.  He  merely,  over  and  over,  called  himself  a  fool. 

"I've  made  an  ass  of  myself,"  he  used  to  think,  sorting 
out  his  cards  for  solitaire  and  looking  furtively  at  the  thin 
face,  with  its  lines  of  wistful  and  faded  beauty.  At  forty- 
two,  a  happy,  busy  woman,  with  a  sound  digestion,  will 
not  look  faded;  on  the  contrary,  she  is  at  her  best — as  far 
as  looks  are  concerned!  Eleanor  was  not  happy;  her 
digestion  was  uncertain;  she  did  not  go  into  society,  and 
she  had  no  real  occupation,  except  to  go  every  day  to  Mrs. 
O'Brien's  and  take  Bingo  for  a  walk.  Even  her  practicing 
had  been  pretty  much  given  up,  for  fear  of  disturbing  the 
people  on  the  floor  below  her. 

"Why  don't  you  have  some  plants  around?"  Maurice 
suggested;  "they'd  give  you  something  to  do!  I  saw  a 
8 


io8  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

lot  of  hyacinths  growing  in  glasses,  once;  I'll  buy  some 
bulbs  for  you." 

"Oh,  I'm  one  of  the  people  flowers  won't  grow  for,"  she 
said. 

Mrs.  Newbolt  made  a  suggestion,  too.  "Pity  you  can't 
have  Bingo  to  keep  you  company.  That's  what  comes  of 
boarding.  I  knew  a  woman  who  boarded,  and  she  lost 
her  teeth.  Chambermaid  threw  'em  away.  Come  in  and 
see  me  any  evening  when  Maurice  is  out." 

As  Maurice  was  frequently  out,  the  invitation  was  some- 
times accepted,  and  it  was  on  one  of  these  occasions  that 
Mrs.  Newbolt,  spreading  out  her  cards  on  the  green  baize 
of  her  solitaire  table  with  fat,  beringed  hands,  made  her 
suggestion: 

"Eleanor,  you  ve  aged.    I  believe  you're  unhappy?" 

"No,  I'm  not!  Why  should  I  be?" 

"Well,  I  wouldn't  blame  you  if  you  were,"  Mrs.  New- 
bolt  said.  "'Course  you'd  have  brought  it  on  yourself; 
I  could  have  told  you  what  to  expect!  Your  dear  uncle 
Thomas  used  to  say  that,  after  a  thing  happened,  I  was 
the  one  to  tell  people  that  they  might  have  expected  it. 
You  see,  I  made  a  point  of  bein'  intelligent;  of  course  I 
wasn't  too  intelligent.  A  man  doesn't  like  that.  You're 
gettin'  gray,  Eleanor.  Pity  you  haven't  children.  He 
doesn't  look  very  contented! — but  men  are  men,"  said 
Mrs.  Newbolt. 

"He  ought  to  be  contented,"  Eleanor  said,  passionately; 
"I  adore  him!" 

"You've  got  to  interest  him,"  her  aunt  said;  "that's 
more  important  than  adorin'  him!  A  man  can  buy  a 
certain  kind  of  adoration,  but  he  can't  purchase  interest." 

"I  don't  know  what  you're  talking  about,"  Eleanor 
said,  trembling. 

"Well,  if  you  don't,  I'm  sure  I  can't  tell  you,"  Mrs. 
Newbolt  said,  despairingly;  but  she  made  one  more 
attempt:  "My  dear  father  used  to  say  that  the  finest 
tribute  a  man  could  put  on  his  wife's  tombstone  would  be, 
'She  was  interestin'  to  live  with.'  So  I  tell  you,  Eleanor,  if 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  109 

you  want  to  hold  that  boy,  make  him  laugh! "  She  was  so 
much  in  earnest  that  for  a  few  minutes  she  actually 
stopped  talking ! 

Eleanor  could  not  make  Maurice  laugh — she  never 
made  anybody  laugh !  But  for  a  while  she  did  "hold  him " 
— because  he  was  a  gallant  youngster,  making  the  best  of 
his  bargain.  That  he  had  begun  to  know  it  was  a  bad 
bargain  did  not  lessen  his  regret  for  his  wife's  childlessness, 
which  he  knew  made  her  unhappy,  nor  his  pity  for  her 
physical  forlornness — which  he  blamed  largely  on  him- 
self: "She  almost  died  that  night  on  the  mountain,  to 
save  my  life!" 

But  he  had  ceased  to  be  touched  by  her  reiterated  long- 
ing for  children ;  he  was  even  a  little  bored  by  it.  And  he 
was  very  much  bored  by  her  reproaches,  her  faint  tempers 
and  their  following  ardors  of  repentant  love — bitternesses, 
and  cloying  sweetnesses!  Yet,  in  spite  of  these  things,  the 
boarding-house  marriage  survived  the  lengthening  of  the 
fifty-four  minutes  of  ecstasy  into  three  years.  But  it 
might  not  have  survived  its  own  third  winter  had  it  not 
been  that  Maurice's  unfaithfulness  enforced  his  faithful- 
ness. For  by  spring  that  squabble  about  lead  pencils, 
which  had  turned  his  careless  steps  toward  the  bridge, 
had  turned  his  life  so  far  from  Eleanor's  that  he  had  been 
untrue  to  her. 

He  had  not  meant  to  be  untrue ;  nothing  had  been  far- 
ther from  his  mind  or  purpose.  But  there  came  a  bitter 
Sunday  afternoon  in  March  .  .  . 

Eleanor,  saying  he  did  not  "understand  her,"  cried 
about  something — afterward  Maurice  was  not  sure  just 
what — perhaps  it  was  a  question  from  one  of  the  other 
boarders  about  the  early  'eighties,  and  she  felt  herself  in- 
sulted; "As  if  I  could  remember!"  she  told  Maurice;  but 
whatever  it  was,  he  had  tried  to  comfort  her  by  joking 
about  it.  Then  she  had  reproached  him  for  his  unkindness 
— to  most  crying  wives  a  joke  is  unkind.  Then  she  had 
said  that  he  was  tired  of  her !  At  which  he  took  refuge  in 
silence — and  she  cried  out  that  he  acknowledged  it! 


no  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

"You  can't  deny  it!  You're  tired  of  me,  because  I'm 
older  than  you!" 

And  he  said,  between  his  teeth,  "If  you  were  old  enough 
to  have  any  sense,  I  wouldn't  be  tired  of  you." 

She  gave  a  cry ;  then  stood,  the  back  of  her  hand  against 
her  lips,  her  eyes  wide  with  terror. 

Maurice  threw  down  a  book  he  had  been  trying  to  read, 
got  up,  plunged  into  his  overcoat,  pulled  his  hat  down 
over  his  eyes,  and,  without  a  word,  walked  out  of  the  room. 
A  moment  later  the  front  door  banged  behind  him. 
Eleanor,  alone,  stood  perfectly  still;  she  had  said  foolish 
things  like  that  many  times ;  she  rather  liked  to  say  them ! 
But  she  had  not  believed  them ;  now,  her  own  words  were 
a  boomerang, — they  seemed  to  strike  her  in  the  face! 
He  was  tired  of  her.  Instantly  she  was  alert !  What  must 
she  do?  She  sat  down,  tense  with  thought;  first  of  all, 
she  must  be  sweet  to  him;  she  mustn't  be  cross;  then  she 
must  try  (Mrs.  Newbolt  had  told  her  so!)  to  "entertain" 
him.  "I'll  read  things,  and  talk  to  him  the  way  Mrs. 
Davis  does!"  She  must  sew  on  his  buttons,  and  scold 
poor  old  O'Brien.  .  .  .  With  just  this  same  silent  deter- 
mination she  had  hurried  to  act  that  night  on  the  moun- 
tain! 

But  while  she  was  sitting  there  in  their  cheerless  room,- 
planning  and  planning! — Maurice  was  out,  wandering 
about  in  the  gray  afternoon.  It  had  begun  to  snow,  in  a 
fitful,  irritating  way — little  gritty  pellets  that  blew  into 
his  face.  He  had  nowhere  to  go — four  o'clock  is  a  dead 
time  to  drop  in  on  people!  He  had  nothing  to  do,  and 
nothing  to  think  of — except  the  foolish,  middle-aged 
woman,  stating,  in  their  dreary  third-floor  front,  an  un- 
deniable fact — he  was  tired  of  her!  Walking  aimlessly 
about  in  the  cold,  he  said  to  himself,  dully,  "Why  was  I 
such  an  idiot  as  to  marry  her?"  He  was  old  enough  to 
curse  himself  for  his  folly,  but  he  was  young  enough  to 
suffer  agonies  of  mortification,  and  to  pity  himself,  too; 
pity  himself  for  the  mere  physical  discomfort  of  his  life: 
the  boarding-house  table,  with  its  uninteresting  food ;  the 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  in 

worn  shirt  cuff  which  was  scratching  his  wrist;  and  he 
pitied  himself  for  his  spiritual  discomfort — when  Eleanor 
called  him  "darling"  at  the  dinner  table,  or  exhibited  her 
jealousy  before  people !  ' '  They're  sorry  for  me — confound 
'em!"  he  thought.  .  .  .  Yet  how  trivial  the  cuff  was,  or 
even — yes,  even  the  impertinence  which  was  "sorry"  for 
him! — how  unimportant,  when  compared  to  a  ring  of 
braided  grass,  and  the  smell  of  locust  blossoms,  and  a 
lovely  voice,  rising  and  falling: 

"O  Spring!" 

"Oh,  damn!"  he  said  to  himself,  feeling  the  scrape  of 
worn  linen  on  the  back  of  his  hand.  Then  he  fell  into  cer- 
tain moody  imaginings  with  which  that  winter  he  fre- 
quently and  harmlessly  amused  himself.  He  used  to  call 
these  flights  of  fancy  "fool  thoughts";  but  they  were  at 
least  an  outlet  to  his  smoldering  irritation.  "Suppose  I 
should  kick  over  the  traces  some  day?"  his  thoughts 
would  run;  and  again, " Suppose  I  should  be  in  a  theater 
fire,  and  'disappear,'  and  never  come  back,  and  she'd 
think  I  was  dead,"  "Suppose  there  should  be  a  war,  and 
I  should  enlist,"  .  .  .  and  so  forth,  and  so  forth.  "Fool 
thoughts,"  of  course! — but  Maurice  is  not  the  only  man 
upon  whom  a  jealous  woman  has  thrust  such  thoughts,  or 
who  has  found  solace  in  the  impossible !  So,  now,  wander- 
ing about  in  the  cold,  he  amused  himself  by  imagining 
various  ways  of  "kicking  over  the  traces";  then,  sud- 
denly, it  occurred  to  him  that  he  wanted  something  to 
eat.  "By  George!"  he  thought,  "I'll  get  that  girl,  Lily, 
and  we'll  go  and  have  a  good  dinner!" 

Even  in  the  rococo  vestibule  of  the  yellow-brick  apart- 
ment house,  while  he  pressed  the  bell  below  Miss  Lily 
Dale's  letter  box,  he  began  to  feel  a  glow  of  comfort;  and 
when  Lily  let  him  into  her  little  parlor,  all  clean  and 
vulgar  and  warm,  and  fragrant  with  blossoming  bulbs, 
and  gave  him  a  greeting  that  was  almost  childlike  in  its 
laughing  pleasure,  his  sense  of  physical  well-being  was 
a  sort  of  hitting  back  at  Eleanor. 


ii2  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

"Oh,"  said  little  Lily,  "my!  Ain't  you  cold!  Why, 
your  hand's  just  like  ice!" 

He  let  her  help  him  off  with  his  coat,  and  push  him 
into  what  had  been  the  vanished  Batty 's  chair;  then  she 
saw  that  his  feet  were  wet,  and  insisted  (to  his  horror) 
on  unlacing  his  boots  and  making  him  put  on  a  pair  of 
slippers. 

"But  I  was  going  to  take  you  out  to  dinner,"  he  re- 
monstrated. 

She  said:  "Oh  no!  It's  cold.  I'll  cook  something  for 
you,  and  we'll  have  our  dinner  right  by  that  fire." 

"Can  you  cook?"  he  said,  with  admiring  astonishment. 

"You  bet  I  can!"  she  said;  I'll  give  you  a  good  supper: 
you  just  wait ! "  In  her  pretty,  laughing  face  was  very  hon- 
est friendliness.  "I  'ain't  forgot  that  time  you  handed  it 
out  to  Batty !  He  had  a  bruise  on  his  chin  for  a  week ! " 

"A  steak!"  he  exclaimed,  watching  her  preparations  in 
the  tiny  closet  of  a  kitchen  that  opened  into  her  parlor. 

She  nodded:  "Ain't  it  luck  to  have  it  in  the  house? 
A  friend  of  mine  gave  it  to  me  this  afternoon;  her  father's 
a  butcher;  and  he's  got  a  dandy  shop  on  the  next  block; 
an'  Annie  run  in  with  it,  an'  she  says"  (Lily  was  greasing 
her  broiler),  "'there,'  she  says,  'is  a  present  for  you!"1 

Maurice  insisted  upon  helping,  and  was  told  where  to  get 
the  dishes  and  what  to  put  on  the  table,  and  that  if  he 
opened  that  closet  he'd  see  the  beer.  "I  got  just  one 
bottle,"  she  said,  chuckling;  "Batty  stocked  up.  When 
he  lit  out,  that  was  all  he  left  behind  him." 

"Seen  him  lately?"  Maurice  asked. 

Lily's  face  changed.  "I  'ain't  seen — anyone,  since 
November,"  she  said;  "I'm  a  saleslady  at  Marston's. 
But  I'll  have  to  get  out  of  this  flat  when  Batty 's  lease 
runs  out.  He  took  it  by  the  year.  He  was  going  to  '  settle 
down,'  and  'have  a  home,' — you  know  the  talk?  So  he 
took  it  for  the  year.  Well,  he  said  I  could  stay  till  June. 
So  I'm  staying.  There!  It's  done!"  She  put  the  sizzling 
steak  on  a  platter  and  pressed  butter  and  pepper  and  salt 
into  it  with  an  energetic  knife  and  fork.  "I  bet,"  she 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  113 

said,  "you  wouldn't  get  a  better  steak  than  this  at  the 
Mercer  House!" 

"I  bet  I  wouldn't  get  one  as  good,"  he  assured  her. 

As  he  ate  his  extremely  well-cooked  steak,  and  drank 
a  cup  of  extremely  well-made  coffee,  and  reflected  that  the 
pretty,  amber-eyed  woman  who,  after  the  manner  of  her 
kind,  had  already  dropped  into  the  friendliness  of  a  nick- 
name, and  who  waited  on  him  with  a  sweet  deftness,  was  a 
reformed  character,  owing,  no  doubt,  to  his  own  efforts, 
Maurice,  comfortable  in  mind  and  body,  felt  the  intense 
pleasure  of  punishing  Eleanor  by  his  mere  presence  in 
Lily's  rooms.  For,  if  she  could  know  where  he  was!  .  .  . 
"Gosh!"  said  Maurice.  But  of  course  she  never  would 
know.  He  wouldn't  think  of  telling  her  where  he  had 
spent  his  evening;  which  shows  how  far  they  had  drifted 
apart  since  that  night  when  he  had  come  home  in  his  shirt 
sleeves,  and  been  so  eager  to  tell  her  how  he  had  given  his 
coat  to  the  "poor  thing"! 

No;  if  he  told  Eleanor  of  Lily,  now,  there  would  be  no 
sympathy  for  a  girl  who  was  really  trying  to  keep  straight; 
no  impulse  to  do  any  "uplift"  work!  For  that  matter, 
Lily  could  do  something  in  the  way  of  uplift  for  Eleanor ! 
.  .  .  Look  at  this  tidy,  gay  little  room,  and  the  well- 
cooked  steak,  and  the  bulbs  on  the  window  sill!  He 
strolled  over  and  looked  at  the  row  of  purple  hyacinth 
glasses,  full  now  of  threadlike  roots  and  topped  with 
swelling  buds.  "You're  quite  a  gardener,"  he  said. 

"Well,  there!"  said  Lily;  "if  I  hadn't  but  ten  cents.I'd 
spend  five  for  a  flower!" 

After  they  had  washed  the  dishes  together  she  made 
him  comfortable  in  the  big  chair,  and  even  put  a  blossom- 
ing hyacinth  on  the  table  beside  him,  so  he  could  smell  it 
now  and  then.  Then  she  sat  down  on  a  hassock  at  his 
feet,  with  her  back  to  the  fire,  and,  flecking  off  the  ashes  of 
her  cigarette  over  her  shoulder,  she  talked  a  friendly  trickle 
of  funny  stories;  Maurice,  smoking,  too,  thought  how 
comfortable  he  was,  and  how  pleasant  it  was  to  have  a  girl 
like  Lily  to  talk  to.  Once  or  twice  he  laughed  uproariously 


ii4  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

at  some  giggling  joke.  "She  has  lots  of  fun  in  her,"  he 
reflected;  "and  she's  a  bully  cook;  and  her  hair  is  mighty 
pretty.  .  .  .  Say,  Lily,  don't  you  want  to  trim  my  cuff? 
It's  scratching  me  to  death." 

"You  bet  I  do!"  Lily  said,  and  got  her  little  shiny 
scissors  and  trimmed  the  broken  edge  of  a  worn-out  cuff 
that  Eleanor  had  never  noticed. 

He  felt  her  small,  warm  fingers  on  his  hand,  and  had  a 
sense  of  comfort  that  made  him  almost  forget  Eleanor. 
"It  would  serve  her  right  if  I  took  Lily  on,"  he  thought. 
But  he  had  not  the  remotest  intention  of  taking  Lily  on! 
He  only  played  with  the  idea,  because  the  impossible 
reality  would  serve  Eleanor  right. 

It  was  a  month  or  two  later,  on  the  rebound  of  another 
dreariness  with  Eleanor,  that  the  reality  came,  and  he  did 
"take  Lily  on."  When  he  did  so,  no  one  could  have  been 
more  astonished — under  his  dismay  and  horror — than 
Maurice. 

Unless  it  was  Lily?  She  had  been  so  certain  that  he 
had  no  ulterior  purpose,  and  so  completely  satisfied  with 
her  own  way  of  living,  that  her  rather  snuggling  friendliness 
with  him  was  as  honest  as  a  boy's.  Her  surprise  at  her  own 
mistake  showed  how  genuine  her  intention  of  straightness 
really  was.  When  he  came,  once  or  twice  to  see  her,  he 
called  her  Lily,  and  she  called  him  "Curt,"  and  they 
joked  together  like  two  playfellows, — except  when  he  was 
too  gloomy  to  joke.  But  it  was  his  gloominess  that  made 
her  feel  sure  there  was  nothing  but  friendliness  in  his  calls. 
She  was  not  curious  about  him;  she  knew  he  was  married, 
but  she  never  guessed  that  his  preoccupation — during 
the  spring  Maurice  was  very  preoccupied  with  his  own 
wretchedness  and  given  to  those  cynical  fancies  about 
"theater  fires"; — was  due  to  the  fact  that  he  and  his  wife 
didn't  get  along.  She  merely  supposed  that,  like  most  of 
her  "gentlemen  friends,"  "Curt"  didn't  talk  about  his 
wife.  But,  unlike  the  gentlemen  of  her  world,  he  was, 
apparently,  a  husband  whose  acquaintance  with  her  had 
its  limits.  So  they  were  both  astonished.  .  .  .(" 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  n5; 

But  when  Maurice  discovered  that  such  acquaintance 
had  also  its  risks,  the  shock  was  agonizing.  He  was  over- 
whelmed with  disgust  and  shame.  Once,  at  his  desk,' 
brooding  over  what  had  happened,  his  whipping  instinct 
of  truthfulness  roused  a  sudden,  frantic  impulse  in  him  to 
go  home  and  confess  to  Eleanor,  and  ask  her  to  forgive 
him.  She  never  would,  of  course!  No  woman  would; 
Eleanor  least  of  all.  But  oh,  if  he  only  could  tell  her !  As 
he  couldn't,  remorse,  with  no  outlet  of  vords,  smoldered 
on  his  consciousness,  as  some  hidden  and  infected  wound 
might  smolder  in  his  flesh.  Yet  he  knew  there  would  be  no 
further  unfaithfulness.  He  would  never,  he  told  himself, 
see  Lily  again!  That  was  easy!  He  was  done  with  all 
"Lilys."  If  he  could  only  shed  the  self-knowledge  which 
he  was  unable  to  share  with  Eleanor,  as  easily  as  he  could 
shed  Lily,  how  thankful  he  would  be!  If  he  could  but 
forget  Lily  by  keeping  away  from  her!  But  of  course  he 
could  not  forget.  And  with  memory,  and  its  redeeming 
pain  of  shame,  was  also  the  stabbing  mortification  of 
knowing  that  he  had  made  a  fool  of  himself,  again!  First 
Eleanor;  then — Lily.  Sometimes,  with  this  realization 
of  his  idiocy,  he  would  feel  an  almost  physical  nausea. 
It  was  so  horrible  to  him,  that  when,  a  month  later,  the 
anniversary  which  marked  his  first  folly  came  around 
again,  he  made  an  excuse  of  having  to  be  away  on  busi- 
ness. It  seemed  to  Maurice  that  to  go  out  to  their  field, 
with  this  loathsome  secrecy  (which  was,  of  course,  an 
inarticulate  lie)  buried  in  his  soul,  would  be  like  carry- 
ing actual  corruption  in  his  hands !  So  he  went  out  of  town 
on  some  trumped-up  engagement,  and  Eleanor,  left  to 
herself,  took  little  pining  Bingo  for  a  walk.  In  a  lonely 
place  in  the  park,  holding  the  dog  on  her  knee,  she  looked 
into  his  passionately  loving  liquid  eyes  and  wiped  her  own  \ 
eyes  on  his  silky  ears.  .  .  . 

Those  were  aging  months  for  Maurice;  and  though,  of 
course,  the  poignancy  of  shame  lessened  after  a  while,  it 
left  its  imprint  on  his  face,  as  well  as  on  his  mind.  They 
speculated  about  it  at  the  office:  '"G.  Washington's'  got 


1x6  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

a  grouch  on,"  one  clerk  said;  "probably  told  the  truth 
and  lost  a  transfer!  Let's  give  him  another  hatchet. " 

And  the  friendly  people  at  the  boarding  house  noticed 
the  change  in  him.  He  had  almost  nothing  to  say,  now, 
at  dinner — no  more  jokes  with  the  school-teacher,  no 
more  eager  talks  with  the  gray-haired  woman.  .  .  . 

"Has  she  forbidden  conversation,  do  you  suppose?" 
Miss  Moore  asked,  giggling ;  but  the  widow  said,  soberly, 
that  she  was  afraid  Mr.  Curtis  was  troubled  about  some- 
thing. Mrs.  Newbolt  saw  that  there  was  something  wrong 
with  him,  and  talked  of  it  to  Eleanor,  without  a  pause, 
for  an  hour.  And  of  course  Eleanor  felt  a  difference  in  him ; 
all  day  long,  in  the  loneliness  of  their  third-floor  front,  un- 
der the  gaze  of  Daniel  Webster,  she  brooded  over  it.  Even 
while  she  was  reading  magazines  and  plodding  through 
newspaper  editorials  on  public  questions  she  had  never 
heard  of,  so  that  she  could  find  things  to  talk  about  to  him, 
she  was  thinking  of  the  change,  and  asking  herself  what 
she  had  done— or  left  undone — to  cause  it?  She  also 
asked  him: 

"Maurice!  Something  bothers  you!  I'm  not  enough 
for  you.  What  is  the  matter?" 

He  said,  shortly,  "Nothing." 

At  which  she  retreated  into  the  silence  of  hurt  feelings. 
Once,  she  knelt  down,  her  face  hidden  on  the  grimy  bed- 
spread, and  prayed:  "God,  please  give  us  a  child — that 
will  make  him  happy.  And  show  me  what  to  do  to  please 
him!  Show  me!  Oh,  shew  me!  I'll  do  anything!"  And 
who  can  say  that  her  prayer  was  not  answered?  For  cer- 
tainly an  idea  did  spring  into  her  mind:  those  tiresome 
people  downstairs — he  liked  to  talk  to  them; — to  Miss 
Moore,  who  giggled,  and  tried,  Eleanor  thought,  to  seem 
learned;  and  to  the  elderly  woman  who  told  stories.  How 
could  he  enjoy  talking  to  them  when  he  could  talk  to  her? 
But  he  did.  So,  suppose  she  tried  to  be  more  sociable 
with  them?  "I  might  invite  Mrs.  Davis  to  come  up  to 
our  room  some  evening — and  I  would  sing  for  her?  .  .  . 
But  not  Miss  Moore;  she  is  too  silly,  with  her  jokes!" 


Her  mind  strained  to  find  ways  to  be  friendly  with  these 
people  he  seemed  to  like.  And  circumstances  helped 
her.  .  .  . 

That  was  the  month  of  the  great  eclipse.  For  a  week 
Miss  Ladd's  boarders  had  talked  about  it,  exchanging 
among  themselves  much  newspaper  astronomical  misinfor- 
mation— which  the  learned  Miss  Moore  good-naturedly 
corrected.  It  was  her  suggestion  that  the  household  should 
make  a  night  of  it :  "Let's  all  go  up  on  the  roof  and  see  the 
show!"  So  the  friendly  gayety  was  planned — a  supper  in 
the  basement  dining  room  at  half  past  eleven — ginger  ale ! 
ice  cream!  chocolate!  Then  an  adjournment  en  masse  to 
the  top  of  the  house.  Of  course  Miss  Moore,  engineering 
the  affair,  invited  the  Curtises,  confident  of  a  refusal — 
and  an  acceptance; — both  of  which,  indeed,  she  secured; 
but,  to  her  astonishment,  it  was  Mr.  Curtis  who  declined, 
and  his  wife  who  accepted. 

"It's  a  bore,"  Maurice  told  Eleanor,  listlessly. 

She  looked  worried:  "Oh,  I  am  so  sorry!  I  told  them 
at  luncheon  that  we  would  come.  I  thought  you'd  enjoy 
it"  (Her  acceptance,  which  had  been  a  real  sacrifice  to 
her,  was  a  bomb  to  the  other  boarders.  "What  has  hap- 
pened?" they  said  to  each  other,  blankly.  "She'll  be  an 
awful  wet  blanket,"  some  one  said,  frowning;  and  some 
one  else  said,  "She's  accepted  because  she  won't  let  him 
out  at  night,  alone!") 

When  the  heterogeneous  household  gathered  in  the 
dining  room,  and  corks  popped  and  jokes  were  made,  Elea- 
nor and  Maurice  were  there;  he,  watching  the  other  peo- 
ple eat  and  drink  and  saying  almost  nothing;  she,  talking 
nervously  and  trying  hard  to  be  slangy  about  astronomy. 
Once  he  looked  at  her  with  faint  interest — for  she  was  so 
evidently  "trying"!  At  midnight  they  all  toiled  up  four 
flights  of  stairs  from  the  basement  to  the  garret,  where, 
with  proper  squeamishness  on  the  part  of  the  ladies,  and 
much  gallantry  of  pushing  and  pulling  on  the  part  of  the 
gentlemen,  and  all  sorts  of  awkwardnesses  and  displaying 
of  legs,  they  climbed  a  ladder  and  got  out  through  the 


n8  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

scuttle  on  to  the  flat  roof.  Then  came  the  calculating  of 
minutes,  and  facetiousness  as  to  other  people's  watches 
and  directions  as  to  what  one  might  expect  to  see.  "It  'D 
look  like  a  bite  out  of  a  cookie,  when  it  begins,"  the  bond 
salesman  said;  and  Miss  Ladd  tittered,  and  said  what 
the  ladies  wanted  to  see  was  the  man  in  the  moon ! 

Maurice,  intolerably  irked,  had  moved  across  to  the 
parapet  and  was  staring  out  over  the  city.  Below  him 
spread  the  dim  expanse  of  roofs  and  chimneys,  with  here 
and  there  the  twinkle  of  light  in  an  attic  window.  Leaning 
on  the  coping  and  looking  down,  he  thought  of  the  human- 
ity under  the  dark  roofs:  a  horizontal  humanity — every- 
body asleep !  The  ugly  fancy  came  to  him  that  if  that  sleep- 
ing layer  of  bodies  could  be  stirred  up,  there  would  be 
instantly  a  squirming  mass  of  loathsome  thoughts — mag- 
gots of  lust,  and  shame,  and  jealousy,  and  fear.  "My 
God!  we're  a  nasty  lot,"  he  thought. 

"Look!"  a  voice  said  at  his  shoulder.  He  sighed,  im- 
patiently— and  looked.  Above  him  soared  the  abyss 
of  space,  velvet  black,  pricked  faintly  here  and  there 
by  stars;  and,  riding  high — eternal  and  serene — the 
Moon. 

He  heard  Miss  Moore  say,  "It's  beginning.'1  .  .  .  And 
the  solemn  curve  of  the  Shadow  touched  the  great  disk. 
No  one  spoke:  they  stood — a  handful  of  little  human 
creatures,  staring  up  into  immensity;  specks  of  conscious- 
ness on  a  whirling  ball  that  was  rushing  forever  into  the 
void,  and,  as  it  rushed,  its  shadow,  sweeping  soundless 
through  the  emptiness  of  Space,  touched  the  watching 
Moon  .  .  .  and  the  broad  plaque,  silver  gilt,  lessened — i 
lessened.  To  half.  To  a  quarter.  To  a  glistening  line, 
Then  coppery  darkness. 

No  one  spoke.  The  flow  of  universes  seemed  to  sweep 
personality  out  upon  eternal  tides.  Yet,  strangely,  Maurice 
felt  a  sudden  uprush  of  personality !  .  .  .  Little  he  was — • 
oh,  infinitely  little;  too  little,  of  course,  to  be  known  by 
the  Power  that  could  do  this — spread  out  the  heavens, 
and  rule  the  deeps  of  Space;  and  yet  he  felt,  somehow, 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  n9 

near  to  the  Power.  "It's  what  they  call  God,  I  suppose? " 
he  said.  It  flashed  into  his  mind  that  he  had  said  almost 
exactly  the  same  thing  that  day  in  the  field  (when  he  was 
a  fool),  of  the  fire  of  joy  in  his  breast:  he  had  said  that 
Happiness  was  God!  And  some  people  thought  this  stu-r 
pendous  Energy  could  know — us?  Absurd!  "Might  a^ 
well  say  a  man  could  know  an  ant."  Yet,  just  because 
Inconceivable  Greatness  was  great,  mightn't  it  know 
Inconceivable  Littleness ?  "The  smaller  I  am — the  nastier, 
the  meaner,  the  more  contemptible — the  greater  It  would 
have  to  be  to  know  me?  To  say  I  was  too  little  for  It 
to  know  about,  would  be  to  set  a  limit  to  Its  greatness." 
How  foolish  Reason  looks,  limping  along  behind  such  an 
intuition — Intuition,  running  and  leaping,  and  praising 
God!  Maurice's  reason  strained  to  follow  Intuition:  "If 
It  knows  about  me,  It  could  help  me,  .  .  .  because  It 
holds  the  stars.  Why !  It  could  fix  things — with  Eleanor ! ' ' 
Looking  up  into  the  gulf,  his  tiny  misery  suddenly  fell 
away.  "It  would  just  prove  Its  greatness,  to  help  me!" 
While  he  groped  thus  for  God  among  the  stars,  the  order 
of  rushing  worlds  brought  light,  just  as  it  had  brought 
darkness:  first  a  gleam;  then  a  curving  thread;  then  a 
silver  sickle;  then,  magnificently!  a  shield  of  light — and 
the  moon's  unaltered  face  looked  down  at  them.  Maurice 
had  an  overwhelming  impulse  to  drop  his  weakness  into 
endless,  ageless,  limitless  Power;  his  glimmer  of  self- 
knowledge,  into  enormous  All-Knowledge;  his  secrecy 
into  Truth.  An  impulse  to  be  done  with  silences.  "God 
knows;  so  Eleanor  shall  know."  The  idea  of  telling  the 
truth  was  to  Maurice — slipping  and  sinking  into  bottom- 
less lying — like  taking  hold  upon  the  great  steadinesses  of 
the  sky.  .  .  . 

People  began  to  talk;  Maurice  did  not  hear  them.  Miss 
Ladd  made  a  joke;  Miss  Moore  said  something  about 
"light  miles";  the  old,  sad,  clever  woman  said,  "The 
firmament  showeth  his  handiwork," — and  instantly,  as 
though  her  words  were  a  signal — a  voice,  as  silvery  as  the 
moon,  broke  the  midnight  with  a  swelling  note: 


i2o  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

"The  spacious  firmament  on  high, 
With  all  the  blue  ethereal  sky  ..." 

A  shock  of  attention  ran  through  the  watchers  on  the 
roof:  Eleanor,  standing  with  her  hands  clasped  lightly  in 
front  of  her,  her  head  thrown  back,  her  eyes  lifted  to  the 
unplumbed  deeps,  was  singing: 

"The  moon  takes  up  the  wondrous  tale 
And  nightly  to  the  listening  earth 
Repeats  the  story  of  her  birth; 
Whilst  all  the  stars  that  round  her  burn, 
And  all  the  planets  in  their  turn — " 

A  window  was  thrown  open  in  a  dark  garret  below,  and 
some  one,  unseen,  listened.  Down  in  the  street,  two  passers- 
by  paused,  and  looked  up.  No  one  spoke.  The  voice 
soared  on — and  ended: 

"Forever  singing  as  they  shine.  ..." 

Maurice  came  to  her  side  and  caught  her  hand.  There 
was  a  long  sigh  from  the  little  group.  For  several  minutes 
no  one  spoke.  Miss  Moore  wiped  her  eyes;  the  baseball 
fan  said,  huskily,  "My  mother  used  to  sing  that";  the 
widow  touched  Eleanor's  shoulder.  "My — my  husband 
loved  it,"  she  said,  and  her  voice  broke. 

The  garret  window  slammed  down;  the  two  people 
in  the  street  vanished  in  the  darkness.  The  little  party  on 
the  roof  melted  away;  they  climbed  through  the  scuttle, 
forgetting  to  joke,  but  saying  to  each  other,  in  lowered 
voices :  ' '  Would  you  have  believed  it  ? "  "  How  wonderful ! ' ' 
And  to  Eleanor,  rather  humbly:  "It  was  beautiful,  Mrs. 
Curtis!" 

In  their  own  room,  Maurice  took  his  wife  in  his  arms  and 
kissed  her.  "I  am  going  to  tell  her,"  he  said  to  himself, 
calmly.  The  overwhelming  grandeur  of  the  heavens 
had  washed  him  clean  of  fear,  clean  even  of  shame,  and 
left  him  impassioned  with  Beauty  and  Law,  which  two 
are  Truth.  "I  will  tell  her,"  he  said. 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  121 

Eleanor  had  sung  without  self-consciousness;  but  now, 
when  they  were  back  again  in  their  room — so  stifling 
after  those  spaces  between  the  worlds ! — self -consciousness 
flooded  in:  "I  suppose  it  was  queer?"  she  said. 

"It  was  perfect,"  Maurice  said;  he  was  very  pale. 

"I  wanted  to  do  something  that  they  would  like,  and  I 
thought  they  might  like  a  hymn?  Some  of  them  said  they 
did.  But  if  you  liked  it,  that  is  all  I  want." 

"I  loved  it."  His  heart  was  pounding  in  his  throat. 
.  .  .  "Eleanor"  (he  could  hardly  see  that  terrible  path 
among  the  stars,  but  he  stumbled  upward),  "Eleanor, 
I'm  not  good  enough  for  you." 

"Not  good  enough?  For  me?"  She  laughed  at  such 
absurdity.  He  was  sitting  down,  his  elbow  on  his  knee,  his 
head  in  his  hand.  She  came  and  knelt  beside  him.  "If 
you  are  only  happy!  I  did  it  to  make  you  happy." 

She  heard  him  catch  his  breath.  "How  much  do  you 
love  me?"  he  said. 

(Oh,  how  long  it  was  since  he  had  talked  that  way — 
asking  the  sweet,  unanswerable  question  of  happy  love ! — 
how  long  since  he  had  spoken  with  so  much  precious 
foolishness!)  "How  much?  Why,  Maurice,  I  love  you  so 
that  sometimes,  when  I  see  you  talking  to  other  people — 
even  these  tiresome  people  here  in  the  house,  I  could  just 
die!  I  want  you  all  to  myself!  I — I  guess  I  feel  about 
you  the  way  Bingo  feels  about  me,"  she  said,  trying  to 
joke — but  there  were  tears  in  her  eyes. 

"I'm  not  always  .  .  .  what  I  ought  to  be,"  he  said; 
"I  am  not — "  (the  path  was  very  dim) — "awfully  good. 
I—" 

"I  suppose  I'm  naturally  jealous,"  she  confessed;  "I 
could  die  for  you,  Maurice;  but  I  couldn't  share  your 
little  finger !  Do  you  remember,  on  oui  wedding  day,  you 
made  me  promise  to  be  jealous?  Well,  I  am."  She  laughed 
— and  he  was  dumb.  There,  on  the  roof,  Truth  seemed  as 
inevitable  as  Law.  It  did  not  seem  inevitable  now.  He 
had  lost  his  way  among  the  stars.  He  could  not  find  words 
to  begin  his  story.  But  words  overflowed  on  Eleanor's 


!i22  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

lips!  .  .  .  "Sometimes  I  get  to  thinking  about  myself — 
I  am  older  than  you,  you  know,  a  little.  Not  that  it  mat- 
ters, really;  but  when  I  see  you  with  other  people,  and 
you  seem  to  enjoy  talking  to  them — it  nearly  kills  me! 
And  you  do  like  to  talk  to  them.  You  even  like  to  talk  to — 
Edith,  who  is  rude  to  me!"  Her  words  poured  out  sob- 
bingly:  "Why,  why  am  I  not  enough  for  you?  You  are 
enough  for  me!" 

He  was  silent. 

"And  .  .  .  and  .  .  .  and  we  haven't  a  baby,"  she  said 
in  a  whisper,  and  dropped  her  face  on  his  knee. 

He  tried  to  lif t  her,  but  his  soul  was  sinking  within  him ; 
dropping  down — down  from  the  awful  heights.  Yet  still 
he  caught  at  Truth!  "Dear,  don't!  As  for  people,  I  may 
talk  to  them;  I  may  even — even  be  with  them,  or  seem 
to  like  them,  and — and  do  things,  that —  I  don't  love 
anybody  but  you,  Eleanor;  but  I — I — " 

It  was  a  final  clutch  at  the  Hand  that  holds  the^Stars. 
But  his  entreating  voice  broke,  for  she  was  kissing  his 
confession  from  his  lips.  Those  last  words — "I  don't 
love  anybody  but  you" — folded  her  in  complete  content! 
"Dear,"  she  said,  "that's  all  I  want — that  you  don't  love 
anybody  but  me."  She  laid  her  wet  cheek  against  his  in 
silence. 

What  could  he  do  but  be  silent,  too?  What  could  he  do 
but  choke  down  the  confessing,  redeeming  words  that 
were  on  his  lips?  So  he  did  choke  them  down,  turning 
his  back  on  the  clean  freedom  of  Truth;  and  the  burden 
of  his  squalid  secret,  which  he  had  been  ready  to  throw 
away  forever,  was  again  packed  like  some  corroding 
thing  in  his  soul.  .  .  . 

When,  late  in  August,  he  and  Eleanor  went  to  Green 
Hill  for  a  few  days*  vacation,  the  effect  of  this  repression 
was  marked.  There  were  wrinkles  on  his  forehead  under 
the  thatch  of  his  blond  hair;  his  blue  eyes  were  dulled, 
and  he  was  taciturn  to  the  point  of  rudeness — except  to 
Eleanor.  He  was  very  polite  to  Eleanor.  He  never,  now, 
amused  himself  by  imagining  how  he  could  disappear  if 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  123 

he  had  the  luck  to  be  in  a  theater  fire.  He  knew  that 
because  he  had  enslaved  himself  to  a  lie,  he  had  lost  the 
right  even  to  dream  freedom.  So  there  were  no  more ' '  fool 
thoughts"  as  to  how  a  man  might  "kick  over  the  traces." 
There  was  nothing  for  him  to  do,  now  (he  said),  but 
"play  the  game."  The  Houghtons  were  uneasily  aware 
of  a  difference  in  him;  and  Edith,  fifteen  now,  felt  that 
he  had  changed,  and  had  fits  of  shyness  with  him.  "He's 
like  he  was  that  night  on  the  river,"  she  told  herself, 
"when  he  gave  the  lady  his  coat."  She  sighed  when 
she  said  this,  and  it  occurred  to  her  that  she  would 
be  a  missionary.  "I  won't  get  married,"  she  thought; 
"I'll  go1  and  nurse  lepers.  He's  exactly  like  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh." 

But  of  course  she  had  moments  of  forgetting  the  lepers — 
moments  when  she  came  down  to  the  level  of  people  like 
Johnny  Bennett.  When  this  happened,  she  thought  that, 
instead  of  going  to  the  South  Seas,  she  would  become  a 
tennis  star  and  figure  in  international  tournaments;  even 
Johnny  admitted  that  she  served  well — for  a  girl.  One 
day  she  confessed  this  ambition  to  Maurice,  but  he  imme- 
diately beat  her  so  badly  that  she  became  her  old  child- 
like, grumpy  self,  and  said  Johnny  was  nicer  for  singles; 
which  enabled  Maurice  to  turn  her  loose  on  John  and  go 
off  alone  to  climb  the  mountain.  He  had  a  dreary  fancy 
for  looking  at  the  camp,  and  living  over  again  those  days 
when  he  was  still  young — and  a  fool,  of  course;  but  not 
so  great  a  fool  as  now,  with  Lily  living  in  a  little  flat  in 
Mercer.  Batty's  lease  had  expired,  and  she  had  moved 
into  a  cheaper,  but  still  ornate,  apartment  house  on  the 
other  side  of  the  river.  Well !  Lily  had  floated  into  his  life  as 
meaninglessly  as  a  mote  floats  into  a  streak  of  light,  and 
then  floated  out  again.  He  hadn't  seen  her  since — since 
that  time  in  May. 

"Ass — ass!"  he  said  to  himself.  "If  Eleanor  knew" 
he  thought,  "there'd  be  a  bust-up  in  two  minutes."  He 
even  smiled  grimly  to  think  of  that  evening  of  the  eclipse 

when,  shaken  by  the  awful  beauty  of  eternal  order,  he  had, 

v  .  — . -- 


i24  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

*for  just  one  high  moment,  dreamed  that  he,  too,  could 
1  attain  the  orderliness  of  Truth — and  tell  Eleanor.  "Idiot !" 
he  said,  contemptuously.  Probably  Maurice  touched  his 
lowest  level  when  he  said  that;  for  to  be  ashamed  of  an 
aspiration,  to  be  contemptuous  of  emotion,  is  to  sin  against 
the  Holy  Ghost. 

When  Maurice  reached  the  camp  he  stood  for  a  while 
looking  about  him.  The  shack  had  not  wintered  well: 
the  door  sagged  on  a  broken  hinge,  and  the  stovepipe  had 
blown  over  and  lay  rusting  on  the  roof.  In  the  blackened 
circle  of  stones  were  some  charred  logs,  which  made  him 
think  of  the  camp  fire  on  that  night  of  Eleanor's  courage 
and  love  and  terror.  He  even  reverted  to  those  first  ex- 
cuses for  her:  "She  nearly  killed  herself  for  me.  Nervous 
prostration,  Doctor  Bennett  said.  I  suppose  a  woman 
never  gets  over  that.  Poor  Eleanor!"  he  said,  softening; 
"it  would  kill  her  ...  if  she  knew."  He  sat  down  and 
looked  off  across  the  valley.  .  .  .  "What  am  I  going  to 
do?"  he  said  to  himself.  "I  can't  make  her  happy;  I'd 
like  to,  but  you  can't  reason  with  her  any  more  than  if  she 
was  a  child.  Edith  has  ten  times  her  sense !  How  absurd 
she  is  about  Edith.  Lord !  what  would  she  do  if  she  knew 
about  Lily!" 

He  reflected,  playing  with  the  mere  horror  of  the 
thought,  upon  just  how  complete  the  "bust-up"  would 
be  if  she  knew!  He  realized  that  he  had  undeserved  good 
luck  with  Lily;  she  hadn't  fastened  herself  on  him.  She 
was  decent  about  that;  if  she'd  been  a  different  sort,  he 
might  have  had  a  nasty  time.  But  Lily  was  a  sport — 
he'd  say  that  for  her;  she  hadn't  clawed  at  him!  And  she 
had  protested  that  she  didn't  want  any  money,  and 
wouldn't  take  it !  And  she  hadn't  taken  it.  He  had  made 
some  occasional  presents,  but  nothing  of  any  value.  He 
had  given  her  nothing,  hardly  even  a  thought  (except  the 
thought  that  he  was  an  ass),  since  last  May.  Thinking 
of  her  now,  he  had  another  of  those  pangs  of  shame  which 
had  stabbed  him  so  at  first,  but  to  which  of  late  he  had 
grown  callous.  The  shame  of  having  been  the  one-^-af  ter 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  125 

all  his  goody-goody  talk! — to  pull  her  off  the  track; 
still,  she  was  straight  again  now.  He  was  quite  sure  of 
that.  "You  can  tell  when  they're  straight,"  he  thought, 
heavily.  Perhaps,  in  the  winter,  he  would  send  her  some 
flowers.  He  thought  of  the  bulbs  on  the  window  sill  of 
Lily's  parlor,  and  tried  to  remember  a  verse;  something 
about — about — what  was  it? 

"If  of  thy  store  there  be 

But  left  two  loaves, 
Sell  one,  and  with  the  dole 
Buy  hyacinths  to  feed  thy  soul." 

He  laughed;  Lily,  feeding  her  "soul"!  "Well,  she  has 
more  '  soul,'  with  her  flower  pots  and  her  good  cooking, 
than  some  women  who  wouldn't  touch  her  with  a  ten- 
foot  pole!  Still,  I'm  done  with  her!"  he  thought.  But  he 
had  no  purpose  of  "uplift";  the  desire  to  reform  Lily 
had  evaporated.  "Queer;  I  don't  care  a  hoot,"  he  told 
himself,  watching  with  lazy  eyes  the  smoke  from  his  pipe 
drift  blue  between  himself  and  the  valley  drowsing  in  the 
heat.  "I'd  like  to  see  the  little  thing  do  well  for  herself — 
but  really  I  don't  give  a  damn."  His  moral  listlessness, 
in  view  of  the  acuteness  of  that  first  remorse,  and  especially 
of  that  moment  among  the  stars,  when  he  had  stretched 
out  hands  passionately  eager  for  the  agonizing  sacrament 
of  confession,  faintly  surprised  him.  How  could  he  have 
been  so  wrought  up  about  it?  He  looked  off  over  the 
valley — saw  the  steely  sickle  of  the  river;  saw  a  cloud 
shadow  touch  the  shoulder  of  a  mountain  and  move 
down  across  the  gracious  bosom  of  its  forests.  Below  him, 
chestnuts  twinkled  and  shimmered  in  the  sun,  and  there 
were  dusky  stretches  of  hemlocks,  then  open  pastures, 
vividly  green  from  the  August  rains.  .  .  .  "It  ought  to  be 
set  to  music,"  he  thought ;  the  violins  would  give  the  flicker 
of  the  leaves — "and  the  harps  would  outline  the  river. 
Eleanor's  voice  is  lovely  .  .  .  she  looks  fifty.  How,"  he 
pondered,  interested  in  the  mechanics  of  it,  "did  she  ever 
get  me  into  that  wagon?"  Then,  again,  he  was  sorry  for 


126  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

her,  and  said,  "Poor  girl ! "  Then  he  was  sorry  for  himself. 
He  knew  that  he  was  tired  to  death  of  Eleanor — tired  of 
her  moods  and  her  lovemaking.  He  was  not  angry  with 
her;  he  did  not  hate  her; — he  had  injured  her  too  much 
to  hate  her;  he  was  simply  unutterably  tired  of  her — 
what  he  did  hate,  was  this  business  of  lugging  a  secret 
around!  "I  feel,"  he  said  to  himself,  "like  a  dog  that's 
killed  a  hen,  and  had  the  carcass  tied  around  his  neck." 
His  face  twitched  with  disgust  at  his  own  simile.  But  as 
for  Eleanor,  he  had  been  contemptibly  mean  to  her,  and, 
"By  God!"  he  said  to  himself,  "at  least  I'll  play  the 
game.  I'll  treat  her  as  well  as  I  can.  Other  fools  have 
married  jealous  women,  and  put  up  with  them.  But, 
good  Lord!"  he  thought,  with  honest  perplexity,  "can't 
the  women  see  how  they  push  you  into  the  very  thing 
they  are  afraid  of,  because  they  bore  you  so  infernally? 
If  I  look  at  a  woman,  Eleanor's  on  her  ear.  .  .  .  Queer," 
he  pondered;  "she's  good.  Look  how  kind  she  is  to  old 
O'Brien's  lame  child.  And  she  can  sing."  He  hummed 
to  himself  a  lovely  lilting  line  of  one  of  Eleanor's  songs. 
"Confound  it!  why  did  I  meet  Lily?  Eleanor  is  a  million 
times  too  good  for  me.  ..." 

Far  off  he  heard  a  sound  and,  frowning,  looked  toward 
the  road:  yes;  somebody  was  coming!  " Can't  a  man  get 
a  minute  to  himself?"  Maurice  thought,  despairingly.  It 
was  the  mild-eyed  and  spectacled  Johnny  Bennett,  and 
behind  him,  Edith,  panting  and  perspiring,  and  smiling 
broadly. 

"Hello!"  she  called  out,  in  cheerful  gasps;  "thought 
we'd  come  up  and  walk  home  with  you!" 

"'Lo,"  Maurice  said. 

The  boy  and  girl  achieving  the  rocky  knoll  on  which 
Maurice  was  sitting,  his  hands  locked  about  his  knees, 
his  eyes  angry  and  ashamed,  staring  over  the  treetops, 
sat  down  beside  him.  Johnny  pulled  out  his  pipe,  and 
Edith  took  off  her  hat  and  fanned  herself.  "Mother  and 
Eleanor  went  for  a  ride.  I  thought  I'd  rather  come  up 
here." 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  127 

"Urn — "  Maurice  said. 

"Two  letters  for  you,"  she  said.  "Eleanor  told  me  to 
bring  'em  up.  Might  be  business." 

As  she  handed  them  to  him,  his  eye  caught  the  address 
on  one  of  them,  and  a  little  cold  tingle  suddenly  ran  down 
his  spine.  Lily  had  never  written  to  him,  but  some  instinct 
warned  him  that  that  cramped  handwriting  on  the  narrow 
lavender  envelope,  forwarded  from  the  office,  could  only 
be  hers.  A  whiff  of  perfumery  made  him  sure.  He  had  a 
pang  of  fright.  At  what?  He  could  not  have  said;  but 
even  before  he  opened  the  purple  envelope  he  knew  the 
taste  of  fear  in  his  mouth.  .  .  . 

Sitting  there  on  the  mountain,  looking  down  into  the 
misty  serenities  of  the  sun-drenched  valley,  with  the  smoke 
of  Johnny  Bennett's  pipe  in  his  nostrils,  and  the  friendly 
Edith  beside  him,  he  tore  open  the  scented  envelope,  and 
as  his  eyes  fell  on  the  first  lines  it  seemed  as  if  the  spreading 
world  below  rose  up  and  hit  him  in  the  face: 

DEAR  FRIEND  CURT, — I  don't  know  what  you'll  say.  I  hope 
you  won't  be  mad.  I'm  going  to  have  a  baby.  It's  yours.  .  .  . 

Maurice  could  not  see  the  page,  a  wave  of  nausea  swamped 
even  his  horror;  he  swallowed — swallowed — swallowed. 
Edith  heard  him  gasp,  and  looked  at  him,  much  interested. 

"What's  the  matter  with  your  hands?"  Edith  inquired. 
4 '  Johnny !  Look  at  his  hands ! ' ' 

Maurice's  fingers,  smoothing  out  the  purple  sheet,  were 
shaking  so  that  the  paper  rustled.  He  did  not  hear  her. 
Then  he  read  the  whole  thing  through  to  its  laconic  end: 

It's  yours — honest  to  God.  Can  you  help  me  a  little?  Sorry 
to  trouble  you  on  your  vacation. 

Your  friend, 

LILY. 

"What  is  the  matter  with  your  hands?"  Edith  said,1 
very  much  interested. 


CHAPTER  XI 

WHEN,  a  year  after  his  marriage,  Maurice  began  to 
awaken  to  Eleanor's  realities,  maturity  had  come 
to  him  with  a  bound.  But  it  was  almost  age  that  fell  upon 
him  when  Lily's  realities  confronted  him.  In  the  late 
afternoon,  as  he  and  Edith  and  the  silent  Johnny  walked 
down  the  mountain,  he  was  dizzy  with  terror  of  Lily! 

She  was  blackmailing  him. 

But  even  as  he  said  the  word,  he  had  an  uprush  of  cour- 
age; he  would  get  a  lawyer,  and  shut  her  up!  That's 
what  you  do  when  anybody  blackmails  you.  Perfectly 
simple.  "A  lawyer  will  shut  her  up!"  It  was  a  hideous 
mess,  and  he  had  no  money  to  spend  on  lawyers;  but  it 
would  never  get  out — the  newspapers  couldn't  get  hold 
of  it — because  a  lawyer  would  shut  her  up!  Though, 
probably,  he'd  have  to  give  her  some  money?  How 
much  would  he  have  to  give  her?  And  how  much  would 
he  have  to  pay  the  lawyer?  He  had  a  crazy  vision  of 
Lily's  attaching  his  salary.  He  imagined  a  dialogue  with 
his  employer:  "A  case  of  blackmail,  sir."  "Don't  worry 
about  it,  Curtis;  we'll  shut  her  up."  This  brought  an 
instant's  warm  sense  of  safety,  which  as  instantly  vanished 
— and  again  he  was  walking  down  the  road,  with  Edith 
beside  him,  talking,  talking.  .  .  .  Eleanor  would  have  to 
know.  .  .  .  No !  She  wouldn't !  He  could  keep  it  a  secret. 
But  he'd  have  to  tell  Mr.  Houghton.  Then  Mrs.  Hough- 
ton  would  know!  Again  a  wave  of  nausea  swept  over 
him,  and  he  shuddered;  then  said  to  himself :  "No:  Uncle 
Henry's  white.  He  won't  even  tell  her." 

Edith  was  asking  him  something;  he  said,  "Yes," 
entirely  at  random — and  was  at  once  involved  in  a  snarl 
of  other  questions,  and  other  random  answers.  Under  his 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  129 

breath  he  thought,  despairingly,  "Won't  she  ever  stop 
talking!  .  .  .  Edith,  I'll  give  vou  fifty  cents  if  you'll  keep 
quiet." 

Edith  was  willing  enough  to  be  quiet ;  "But,"  she  added, 
practically,  "would  you  mind  giving  me  the  fifty  cents 
now,  Maurice?  You  always  tear  off  to  Eleanor  the  minute 
you  get  home,  and  I'm  afraid  you'll  forget  it." 

He  put  his  hand  in  his  pocket  and  produced  the  half 
dollar.  "Anything  to  keep  you  still!"  he  said 

"You  don't  mind  if  I  talk  to  Johnny?" 

He  didn't  answer;  at  that  moment  he  was  not  aware 
of  her  existence,  still  less  Johnny's,  for  a  frightful  thought 
had  stabbed  him :  Suppose  it  wasn't  blackmail  ?  Suppose 
Lily  had  told  the  truth?  Suppose  "it"  was  his?  "She  can't 
prove  it — she  can't  prove  it!"  he  said,  aloud. 

"Prove  what?   Who  can't?"  Edith  said,  interested. 

Maurice  didn't  hear  her.  Suddenly  he  felt  too  sick  to 
follow  his  own  thought,  and  go  to  the  bottom  of  things; 
he  was  afraid  to  touch  the  bottom !  He  made  a  desperate 
effort  to  keep  on  the  surface  of  his  terror  by  saying: 
"It's  all  Eleanor's  fault.  Damnation !  Her  idiotic  jealousy 
drove  me  out  of  the  house  that  Sunday  afternoon!" 

At  this  moment  Johnny  Bennett  and  Edith  broke  into 
shrieks  of  laughter.  "Say,  Maurice,"  Johnny  began — 

"Can't  you  children  be  quiet  for  five  minutes?" 
Maurice  said.  Johnny  whistled  and,  behind  his  spec- 
tacles, made  big  eyes  at  Edith.  "What's  he  got  on  his 
little  chest?"  Johnny  inquired.  But  Maurice  was  deaf  to 
sarcasm.  .  .  .  "It  all  goes  back  to  Eleanor!" 

Under  the  chatter  of  the  other  two,  it  was  easier  to  say 
this  than  to  say,  "Is  Lily  telling  the  truth?"  It  was 
easier  to  hate  Eleanor  than  to  think  about  Lily.  And, 
hating,  he  said  again,  aloud,  the  single  agonized  word. 

Edith  stood  stock-still  with  amazement;  she  could  not 
believe  her  ears.  Maurice  had  said — ?  As  for  Maurice, 
his  head  bent  as  if  he  were  walking  in  a  high  wind  he  strode 
on,  leaving  her  in  the  road  staring  after  him. 

"Johnny!"  said  Edith;   "did  you  hear?" 


i3o  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

"That's  nothing,"  Johnny  said;  "I  say  it  often,  when 
mother  ain't  round.  At  least  I  say  the  first  part." 

"Oh,  Johnny!"  Edith  said,  dismayed. 

To  Maurice,  rushing  on  alone,  the  relief  of  hating 
Eleanor  was  lost  in  the  uprush  of  that  ghastly  possibility : 
"If  it  is  mine?" 

Something  in  him  struggled  to  say:  "If  it  is,  why, 
then,  I  must —  But  it  isn't!"  Maurice  was,  for  the  mo- 
ment, a  horribly  scared  boy;  his  instinct  was  to  run  to 
cover  at  any  cost.  He  forgot  Edith,  coming  home  by 
herself  after  Johnny  should  turn  in  at  his  own  gate;  he 
was  conscious  only  of  his  need  to  be  alone  to  think  this 
thing  out  and  decide  what  he  must  do.  There  was  no 
possible  privacy  in  the  house.  "If  I  go  up  to  our  room," 
he  thought,  frantically,  "Eleanor  '11  burst  in  on  me,  and 
then  she'll  get  on  to  it  that  there's  something  the  matter!" 
Suddenly  he  remembered  the  chicken  coop.  "It's  late. 
Edith  won't  be  coming  in."  So  he  skulked  around  behind 
the  house  and  the  stable,  and  up  the  gravel  path  to  the 
henhouse.  Lifting  the  rusty  latch,  he  stepped  quietly  into 
the  dusky,  feathery  shelter.  "I  can  think  the  damned 
business  out,  here,"  he  thought.  There  was  a  scuffling 
"cluck"  on  the  roosts,  but  when  he  sat  down  on  an  over- 
turned box,  the  fowls  settled  into  stillness  and,  except  for 
an  occasional  sleepy  squawk,  the  place  was  quiet.  He 
drew  a  long  breath,  and  dropped  his  chin  on  his  fist. 
"Now  I'll  think,"  he  said.  Then,  through  the  cobwebby 
windows,  he  saw  in  the  yellowing  west  the  new  moon, 
and  below  it  the  line  of  distant  hills.  An  old  pine  tree 
stretched  a  shaggy  branch  across  the  window,  and  he  said 
to  himself  that  the  moon  and  the  hills  and  the  branch 
were  like  a  Japanese  print. 

He  took  the  letter  out  of  his  pocket — his  very  fingers 
shrinking  as  he  touched  it — and  straining  his  eyes  in  the 
gathering  dusk,  he  read  it  all  through.  Then  he  looked 
at  the  moon,  which  was  sliding — sliding  behind  the  pine. 
Yes,  that  ragged  branch  was  very  Japanese.  If  he  hadn't 
gone  out  on  the  river  that  night  with  Edith,  he  would 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  131 

never  have  met  Lily.  The  thing  he  had  said  on  his 
wedding  day,  in  the  meadow,  about  "switches,"  flashed 
into  his  mind:  "A  little  thing  can  throw  the  switches." 
"Ten  minutes  in  a  rowboat,"  he  said, — "and  this!"  One 
of  the  hens  clucked.  "I'll  fight,"  he  said.  "Lots  of 
men  come  up  against  this  sort  of  thing,  and  they  hand 
the  whole  rotten  business  over  to  a  lawyer.  I'll  fight. 
Or  I'll  move.  .  .  .  Perhaps  that's  the  best  way?  I'll 
just  tell  Eleanor  we've  got  to  live  in  New  York.  Damn  it ! 
she'd  ask  why?  I'll  say  I  have  a  job  there.  Lily  'd  never 
be  able  to  find  me  in  New  York."  The  moon  slipped 
out  below  the  pine,  and  hung  for  a  dim  moment  in  the 
haze.  Maurice's  mind  went  through  a  long  and  involved 
plan  of  concealing  his  address  from  Lily  when  he  moved 
to  New  York.  .  .  .  "But  what  would  we  live  on  while  I 
was  finding  a  job  ? "  .  .  .  Suddenly  thought  stopped  short ; 
he  just  watched  the  moon,  and  listened  to  a  muffled  stir 
among  the  hens.  Then  he  took  out  his  knife,  and  began 
to  cut  little  notches  on  the  window  sill.  "I'll  fight,"  he 
said,  mechanically. 

There  were  running  steps  on  the  gravel  path,  and  in- 
stantly he  was  on  his  feet.  He  had  the  presence  of  mind  to 
put  his  hand  into  a  nest,  so  that  when  Edith  came  in  she 
reproached  him  for  getting  ahead  of  her  in  collecting  eggs. 

" How  many  have  you  got ?  Two?  Griselda  was  on  the 
nest  when  I  started  up  the  mountain,  but  I  thought  there 
was  another  egg  there?" 

"Only  one,"  he  said,  thickly,  and  handed  it  to  her. 

"Come  on  in  the  house,"  Edith  commanded;  "I  sup- 
pose," she  said,  resignedly,  "Eleanor  is  playing  on  the 
piano!"  (Edith,  as  her  adoration  of  Eleanor  lessened,  was 
frankly  bored  by  her  music.) 

"All  right,"  Maurice  said,  and  followed  her. 

Edith  asked  no  questions;  Maurice's  "word"  on  the 
road  had  sobered  her  too  much  for  talk.  "He's  mad 
about  something,"  she  thought;  "but  I  never  heard 
Maurice  say — that!"  She  didn't  quite  like  to  repeat 
iwhat  he  had  said,  though  Johnny  had  confessed  to  saying 


i3a  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

"part  of  it."  "I  don't  believe  he  ever  did,"  Edith  thought; 
"he's  putting  on  airs!  But  for  Maurice  to  say  all  of  it! — 
that  was  wrong,"  said  Edith,  gravely. 

They  went  out  of  the  henhouse  together  in  silence. 
Maurice  was  saying  to  himself,  "I  might  not  be  able  to 
get  a  job  in  New  York.  .  .  .  I'll  fight."  Yet  certain 
traditional  decencies,  slowly  emerging  from  the  welter 
of  his  rage  and  terror,  made  him  add,  "If  it  was  mine, 
I'd  have  to  give  her  something.  .  .  .  But  it  isn't.  I'll 
fight." 

He  was  so  absorbed  that  before  he  knew  it  he  had  fol- 
lowed Edith  to  the  studio,  where,  in  the  twilight.  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Houghton  were  sitting  on  the  sofa  together, 
hand  in  hand,  and  Eleanor  was  at  the  piano  singing, 
softly,  old  songs  that  her  hosts  loved. 

"If,"  said  Henry  Houghton,  listening,  "heaven  is  any 
better  than  this,  I  shall  consider  it  needless  extravagance 
on  the  part  of  the  Almighty," — and  he  held  his  wife's 
hand  against  his  lips.  Maurice,  at  the  door,  turned 
away  and  would  have  gone  upstairs,  but  Mr.  Houghton 
called  out:  "Sit  down,  man!  If  /  had  the  luck  to  have  a 
wife  who  could  sing,  I'd  keep  her  at  it!  Sit  down!" 
Eleanor's  voice,  lovely  and  noble  and  serene,  went  on : 

"To  add  to  golden  numbers,  golden  numbers! 
O  sweet  content!    O  sweet,  O  sweet  content!" 

Maurice  sat  down;  it  was  as  if,  after  beating  against 
crashing  seas  with  a  cargo  of  shame  and  fear,  he  had 
turned  suddenly  into  a  still  harbor:  the  faintly  lighted 
studio,  the  stillness  of  the  summer  evening,  the  lovely 
voice — the  peace  and  dignity  and  safety  of  it  all  gave  him 
a  strange  sense  of  unreality.  .  .  .  Then,  suddenly,  he 
heard  them  all  laughing  and  telling  Eleanor  they  were 
sorry  for  her,  to  have  such  an  unappreciative  husband ! — 
and  he  realized  that  the  fatigue  of  terror  had  made  him 
fall  asleep.  Later,  when  he  came  to  the  supper  table,  he 
still  dazed.  ^  He  said  he  had  a  headache,  and  could 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  133 

not  eat;  instantly  Eleanor's  anxiety  was  alert.  She  sug- 
gested hot-water  bags  and  mustard  plasters,  until  Mr. 
Houghton  said  to  himself :  "  How  does  he  stand  it  ?  Mary 
must  tell  her  not  to  be  a  mother  to  him — or  a  grand- 
mother." 

All  that  hot  evening,  out  on  the  porch,  Maurice  was 
silent — so  silent  that,  as  they  separated  for  the  night, 
his  guardian  put  a  hand  on  his  shoulder.  "Come  into  the 
studio,"  he  said;  "I  want  to  show  you  a  thing  I've  been 
muddling  over." 

Maurice  followed  him  into  the  vast,  shadowy,  untidy 
room  ("No  females  with  dusters  allowed  on  the  premises !" 
Henry  Houghton  used  to  say),  glanced  at  a  half -finished 
canvas,  said,  "Fine!"  and  turned  away. 

"Anything  out  of  kilter?  I  mean,  besides  your  head- 
ache?" 

"Well  .  .  .  yes." 

("He's  going  to  say  he's  hard  up — the  extravagant 
cuss!"  Henry  Houghton  thought,  with  the  old  provoked 
affection.) 

" I'm  bothered  about  .  .  .  something,"  Maurice  began. 

("He's  squabbled  with  Eleanor.   I  wish  I  was  asleep!") 

"Uncle  Henry,"  Maurice  said,  "if  you  were  going  to 
see  a  lawyer,  who  would  you  see?" 

"I  wouldn't  see  him.  Lawyers  make  their  cake  by 
cooking  up  other  people's  troubles.  Sit  down.  Let's 
talk  it  out."  He  settled  himself  in  a  corner  of  the  ragged 
old  horsehair  sofa  which  faced  the  empty  fireplace  and 
motioned  Maurice  to  a  chair.  "I  thought  it  wasn't  all 
headache;  what's  the  matter,  boy?" 

Maurice  sat  down,  cleared  his  throat,  and  put  his  hands 
in  his  pockets  so  they  would  not  betray  him.  "I — "  he 
said. 

Mr.  Houghton  appeared  absorbed  in  biting  off  the  end 
of  his  cigar. 

"I — "  Maurice  said  again. 

"Maurice,"  said  Henry  Houghton,  "keep  the  peace.  If 
you  and  Eleanor  have  fallen  out,  don't  stand  on  your  dig- 


i34  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

nity.    Go  upstairs  and  say  you're  sorry,  whether  you  are 
or  not.    Don't  talk  about  lawyers." 

"My  God!"  said  Maurice;  "did  you  suppose  it  was 
Aaff" 

Mr.  Houghton  stopped  biting  the  end  of  his  cigar,  and 
looked  at  him.  ' '  Why,  yes ;  I  did.  You  and  she  are  rather 
foolish,  you  know.  So  I  supposed — " 

Maurice  dropped  his  face  on  his  arms  on  the  big  dusty 
table,  littered  with  pamphlets  and  charcoal  studies  and 
squeezed-out  paint  tubes.  After  a  while  he  lifted  his  head  : 
''That's  nothing.  I  wish  it  was  that." 

The  older  man  rose  and  stood  with  his  back  to  the  man- 
telpiece. They  both  heard  the  clock  ticking  loudly.  Then, 
almost  in  a  whisper,  Maurice  said: 

"  I ' ve  been — blackmailed. ' ' 

Mr.  Houghton  whistled. 

'I've  had  a  letter  from  a  woman.   She  says — " 
'Has  she  got  anything  on  you?" 

'No  proof;  but—" 

'But  you  have  made  a  fool  of  yourself?" 

'Yes." 

Mr.  Houghton  sat  down  again.    "Go  on,"  he  said. 

Maurice  reached  for  a  maulstick  lying  across  the  table; 
then  leaned  over,  his  elbows  on  his  knees,  and  tried,  with 
two  trembling  forefingers,  to  make  it  stand  upright  on 
the  floor.  "She's  common.  She  can't  prove  it's — mine." 
His  effort  to  keep  the  stick  vertical  with  those  two  shaking 
fingers  was  agonizing. 

"Begin  at  the  beginning,"  Henry  Houghton  said. 

Maurice  let  the  maulstick  drop  against  his  shoulder 
and  sunk  his  head  on  his  hands.  Suddenly  he  sat  up: 
"What's  the  use  of  lying?  She's  not  bad  all  through." 
The  truth  seemed  to  tear  him  as  he  uttered  it.  "That's 
the  worst  of  it,"  he  groaned.  "If  she  was,  I'd  know  what 
to  do.  But  probably  she's  not  lying.  .  .  .  She  says  it's 
mine.  Yes;  I  pretty  well  know  she's  not  lying." 

"We'll  go  on  the  supposition  that  she  is.  I  have  yet  to 
see  a  white  crow.  How  much  does  she  want?" 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  i3S 

"She's  only  asked  me  to  help  her,  when — it's  born. 
And  of  course,  if  it  is  mine,  I — " 

"We  won't  concede  the  'if.'" 

"Uncle  Henry,"  said  the  haggard  boy,  "I'm  several 
kinds  of  a^fool,  but  I'm  not  a  skunk.  I've  got  to  be 
decent." 

"You  should  have  thought  of  decency  sooner." 

"I  know.    I  know." 

"You'd  better  tell  me  the  whole  thing.  Then  we'll  talk 
lawyers." 

So  Maurice  began  the  squalid  story.  Twice  he  stopped, 
choking  down  excuses  that  laid  the  blame  on  Eleanor.  .  .  . 
"It  wouldn't  have  happened  if  I  hadn't  been — been 
bothered."  And  again,  "Something  had  thrown  me  off 
the  track;  and  I  met  Lily,  and — " 

At  last  it  was  all  said,  and  he  had  not  skulked  behind 
his  wife.  He  had  told  everything,  except  those  explaining 
things  that  could  not  be  told. 

When  the  story  was  ended  there  was  silence.  The  older 
man,  guessing  the  untold  things,  could  not  trust  himself 
to  speak  his  pity  and  anger  and  dismay.  But  in  that 
moment  of  silence  the  comfort  of  confession  made  the 
tears  stand  in  the  boy's  eyes;  he  said,  impulsively,  "Uncle 
Henry,  I  thought  you'd  kick  me  out  of  the  house!" 

Henry  Houghton  blew  his  nose,  and  spoke  with  husky 
harshness.  "Eleanor  has  no  suspicions?"  (He,  too,  was 
choking  down  references  to  Eleanor  which  must  not  be 
spoken.) 

"  No.   Do  you  think  I  ought  to— to  tell—  ? " 

"No!  No!  With  some  women  you  could  make  a  clean 
breast.  ...  I  know  a  woman — her  husband  hadn't  a 
secret  from  her;  and  I  know  he  was  a  fool  before  his 
marriage !  He  made  a  clean  breast  of  it,  and  she  married 
him.  But  she  knew  the  soul  of  him,  you  see?  She  knew 
that  this  sort  of  rotten  foolishness  was  only  his  body.  So 
he  worshiped  her.  Naturally.  Propedy.  She  meant  God 
to  him.  .  .  .  Mighty  few  women  like  that!  Candidly, 
I  don't  think  your  wife  is  one  of  them.  Besides,  this  is 


i36  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

after  marriage.  That's  different,  Maurice.  Very  differ- 
ent. It  isn't  a  square  deal." 

Maurice  made  a  miserable  shamed  sound  of  agreement. 
Then  he  said,  huskily,  "Of  course  I  won't  lie;  I'll  just — 
not  tell  her." 

"The  thing  for  us  to  do,"  said  Mr.  Houghton,  "is  to 
get  you  out  of  this  mess.  Then  you'll  keep  straight  ?  Some 
fellows  wouldn't.  You  will,  because — "  he  paused; 
Maurice  looked  at  him  with  scared  eyes — "because  if 
a  man  is  sufficiently  aware  of  having  been  a  damned  fool, 
he's  immune.  t  I'll  bet  on  you,  Maurice."' 


CHAPTER 'XII5 

YET  Henry  Houghton  had  moments  of  fearing  that  he 
would  lose  his  bet,  for  Maurice  was  such  a  very 
damned  fool !  One  might  have  guessed  as  much  when  he 
would  not  admit  that  Lily  was  lying.  She  might  be  black- 
mailing him,  he  said;  she  might  be  a  "crow";  but  she 
wasn't  lying.  When  his  guardian  had  talked  it  all  out 
with  him,  and  written  a  letter  which  Maurice  was  to 
take  to  a  lawyer  ("she'll  want  to  get  rid  of  the  child;  they 
always  want  to  get  rid  of  the  child;  so  she  may  let  you 
off  easier  if  you  say  you'll  see  that  it  is  cared  for;  and 
we'll  have  Hayes  put  it  in  black  and  white")  when  all  i 
these  arrangements  had  been  made,  Maurice  almost 
dished  the  whole  thing  (so  Mr.  Houghton  expressed  it) 
by  saying — again  as  if  the  words  burst  up  from  some 
choked  well  of  truthfulness: 

"Uncle  Henry,  it  isn't  blackmail;  and — and  I've  got 
to  be  half  decent!" 

Down  from  the  upper  hall  came  a  sweet,  anxious  voice: 
"Maurice,  darling!  It's  twelve  o'clock!  What  are  you 
doing?" 

Mr.  Houghton  called  back:  "We're  talking  business, 
Eleanor.  I'll  send  him  up  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  Don't 
lose  your  beauty  sleep,  my  dear.  (Mary  must  tell  her 
not  to  be  such  an  idiot!)"  Then  he  looked  at  Maurice: 
"My  boy,  you  can't  be  decent  with  a  leech.  You've  got 
to  leave  this  to  Hayes." 

"She  isn't  a  leech.  I  ought  to  help  her.  I'll  see  her 
myself." 

"My  dear  fellow,  don't  be  a  bigger  ass  than  you  can 
help !  You  can  meet  what  you  see  fit  to  call  your  respon- 
sibilities, as  a  few  other  conscientious  fools  have  done 


.i38  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

before  you;  though,"  he  added,  heavily,  "I  hope~she 
won't  suck  you  dry!  How  you  are  going  to  squeeze  out 
the  money,  I  don't  know!  I  can't  help  you  much.  But 
you  mustn't  appear  in  this  for  a  single  minute.  Hayes 
will  see  her,  and  buy  her  off." 

Maurice  shook  his  head,  despairingly:  "Uncle  Henry, 
she's  common;  but  she's  not  vicious.  She's  a  nice  little 
thing.  I  know  Lily!  I'll  see  her.  I'll  have  to!  I'll  tell  her 
I'll — I'll  help  her."  No  wonder  poor  Henry  Houghton 
feared  he  would  lose  his  bet!  " I  know  you  think  I'm  easy 
meat,"  Maurice  said;  "but  I'm  not.  Only,"  his  face  was 
anguished,  "I've  got  to  be  half  decent." 

It  was  after  one  o'clock  when  the  two  men  went  up- 
stairs, though  there  had  been  another  summons  over  the 
banisters:  "Maurice!  Why  don't  you  come  to  bed?" 
When  they  parted  at  Maurice's  door,  Mr.  Houghton 
struck  his  ward  on  the  shoulder  and  whispered,  "You're 
more  than  half  decent.  I'll  bet  on  you!"  and  Maurice 
whispered  back: 

"You're  white,  Uncle  Henry!" 

He  went  into  his  room  on  tiptoe,  but  Eleanor  heard  him 
and  said,  sleepily,  "What  on  earth  have  you  been  talking 
about?" 

"Business,"  Maurice  told  her. 

"Who  was  your  lavender-colored  letter  from?"  Eleanor 
said,  yawning;  "I  forgot  to  ask  you.  It  was  awfully 
scented!" 

There  was  an  instant's  pause ;  Maurice's  lips  were  dry ; — 
then  he  said: 

"From  a  woman.  .  .  .  About  a  house.  (My  God!  I've 
lied  to  her!) "  he  said  to  himself.  .  .  . 

Mary  Houghton,  reading  comfortably  in  bed,  looked 
up  at  her  old  husband  over  her  spectacles.  "I've  heated 
some  cocoa,  dear,"  she  said.  "Drink  it  before  you 
undress;  you  are  worn  out.  What  kept  you  downstairs 
until  this  hour?" 

"Business." 

Mary  Houghton  smiled:  "Might  as  well  tell  the  truth." 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  i39 

"Oh,  Kit,  it's  a  horrid  mess!"  he  groaned;  "I  thought 
that  boy  had  got  to  the  top  of  Fool  Hill  when  he  married 
Eleanor!  But  he  hadn't." 

"Can't  tell  me,  I  suppose?" 

"No.  Mary,  mayn't  I  have  a  cigar?  I'm  really  awfully 
used  up,  and — " 

"Henry!  You  are  perfectly  depraved!  No;  you  may 
not.  Drink  your  cocoa,  honey.  And  consider  the  stars; — 
they  shine,  even  above  Fool  Hill.  And  'messes'  look 
mighty  small  beside  the  Pleiades!"  Then  she  turned  a 
page  of  her  novel,  and  added,  "Poor  Eleanor." 

"I  don't  know  why  you  say  'Poor  Eleanor'!" 

"Because  I  know  that  Maurice  isn't  sharing  his  'mess' 
with  her." 

"You  are  uncanny!"  Henry  Houghton  said,  stirring  his 
cocoa  and  looking  at  her  admiringly. 

"No;  merely  intelligent.  Henry,  don't  let  him  have 
any  secrets  from  Eleanor!  Tell  him  to  tell  her.  She'll 
forgive  him." 

"She's  not  that  kind,  Mary." 

"Dear,  almost  every  woman  is  'that  kind'!  It's  decep- 
tion, not  confession,  that  makes  them — the  other  kind. 
If  Maurice  will  confess — " 

"I  haven't  said  there  was  anything  to  confess,"  he 
protested,  in  alarm. 

"Oh  no;  certainly  not.  You  haven't  said  a  word! 
(Well;  you  may  have  just  one  of  those  little  cigars — you 
poor  dear!)  Henry,  listen:  If  Maurice  hangs  a  secret 
round  his  neck  it  will  drown  him." 

"  If  Eleanor  would  make  cocoa  for  him  at  one  o'clock  in 
the  morning  there  would  be  no  chance  for  secrets.  Kit, 
I  have  long  known  that  you  are  the  wisest,  as  well  as  the 
most  virtuous  and  most  lovable  of  your  sex,  and  that  I 
shall  only  get  to  heaven  by  hanging  on  to  your  petticoats; 
but  in  this  one  particular  I  am  much  more  intelligent  than 
.you." 

"Heaven  send  you  a  good  opinion  of  yourself!"  his 

wife  murmured. 
10 


140  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

But  ne  insisted.  "On  certain  subjects  women  prefer 
to  be  lied  to." 

"Did  any  woman  ever  tell  you  so?"  she  inquired, 
dryly. 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders,  put  his  cup  down,  and  came 
over  to  give  her  a  kiss. 

"Which  is  to  say,  'Hold  your  tongue'?"  his  Mary 
inquired. 

"Oh,  never!"  he  said,  and  in  spite  of  his  distress  he 
laughed;  but  he  looked  at  her  tenderly.  "The  Lord  was 
good  to  me,  Mary,  when  He  made  you  take  me." 

That  talk  in  the  studio  marked  the  moment  when 
Maurice  Curtis  turned  his  back  on  youth.  It  was  the 
beginning  of  the  retreat  of  an  ardent  and  gayly  candid 
boy  into  the  adult  sophistications  of  Secrecy.  The  next 
day  when  he  and  Eleanor  returned  to  Mercer,  he  sat  in 
the  car  watching  with  unseeing  eyes  the  back  of  her  head, 
— her  swaying  hat,  the  softly  curling  tendrils  of  dark  hair 
in  the  nape  of  her  neck — and  he  saw  before  him  a  narrow 
path,  leading — across  quaking  bogs  of  evasions! — toward 
a  goal  of  always  menaced  safety.  Mr.  Houghton  had 
indicated  the  path  in  that  midnight  talk,  and  Maurice's 
first  step  upon  it  would  be  his  promise  to  relieve  Lily  of 
the  support  of  her  child — "on  condition  that  she  would 
never  communicate  with  him  again."  After  that,  Henry 
Houghton  said,  "the  lawyer  will  clinch  things;  and  no- 
body will  ever  be  the  wiser!"  Because  Eleanor  was  the 
woman  she  was,  he  saw  no  way  of  escape  for  Maurice, 
except  through  this  bog  of  secrecy,  where  any  careless  step 
might  plunge  him  into  a  lie.  He  had  not  dared  to  point 
out  that  other  path,  which  his  Mary  thought  so  much 
safer  than  the  sucking  shakiness  of  the  swamp — the  rough 
and  terrible  path  of  confession,  which  lies  across  the  firm 
aridities  of  Truth,  and  leads  to  that  orderly  freedom  of, 
the  stars  to  which  Maurice  had  once  aspired !  So  now  the 
boy  was  going  back  to  Mercer  to  plunge  into  the  pitfalls 
and  limitless  shades  of  concealment.  He  did  it  with  a! 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  141 

hard  purpose  of  endurance,  without  hope,  and  also  with- 
out complaint. 

"If  I  can  just  avoid  out-and-out  lying,"  he  told  himself, 
"I  can  take  my  medicine.  But  if  I  have  to  lie — !" 

He  knew  the  full  bitterness  of  his  medicine  when  he 
went  to  see  Lily.  .  ,  . 

He  went  the  very  next  day,  after  office  hours.  .  .  . 
There  had  been  a  temptation  to  postpone  the  taking  of 
the  medicine,  because  it  had  been  difficult  to  escape  from 
Eleanor.  The  well-ordered  household  at  Green  Hill  had 
fired  her  with  an  impulse  to  try  housekeeping  again,  and 
she  wanted  to  urge  the  idea  upon  Maurice: 

"We  would  be  so  much  more  comfortable;  and  I  could 
have  little  Bingo!" 

"We  can't  afford  it,"  he  said.  (Oh,  how  many  things  he 
wouldn't  be  able  to  afford,  now!) 

"It  wouldn't  cost  much  more.  I'll  come  down  to  the 
office  this  afternoon  and  walk  home  with  you,  and  tell 
you  what  I've  thought  out  about  it." 

Maurice  said  he  had  to — to  go  and  see  an  apartment 
house  at  five. 

"That's  no  matter!  I'll  meet  you  and  walk  along  with 
you." 

"I  have  several  other  places  to  go." 

That  hurt  her.    "If  you  don't  want  me — " 

He  was  so  absorbed  that  her  words  had  no  meaning 
to  him.  "Good-by,"  he  said,  mechanically — and  the  next 
moment  he  was  on  his  way. 

At  the  office  his  employer  gave  him  a  keen  glance. 
"You  look  used  up,  Curtis;  got  a  cold?"  Mr.  Weston 
asked,  kindly. 

Maurice,  sick  in  spirit,  said,  "No,  sir;   I'm  all  right." 

And  so  the  minutes  of  the  long  day  ticked  themselves 
away,  each  a  separate  pang  of  disgust  and  shame,  until 
five  o'clock  came,  and  he  started  for  Lily's. 

While  he  waited  in  the  unswept  vestibule  of  an  in- 
credibly ornate  frame  apartment  house  for  the  answer  to 
his  ring,  and  the  usual : ' '  My  goodness !  Is  that  you  ?  Come 


i42  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

on  up!"  he  had  the  feeling  of  one  who  stands  at  a  closed 
door,  knowing  that  when  he  opens  it  and  enters  he  will 
look  upon  a  dead  face.  The  door  was  Lily's,  and  the  face 
was  the  face  of  his  dead  youth.  Carelessness  was  over  for 
Maurice,  and  irresponsibility.  And  hope,  too,  he  thought, 
and  enthusiasm,  and  ambition.  All  over !  All  dead.  All 
lying  stiff  and  still  on  the  other  side  of  a  shiny  golden-oak 
door,  with  its  half  window  hung  with  a  Nottingham  lace 
curtain.  When  he  started  up  the  three  flights  of  stairs  to 
that  little  flat  where  he  was  to  look  upon  his  dead,  he  was 
calm  to  the  point  of  listlessness.  "My  own  fault.  My 
own  fault,"  he  said. 

She  was  waiting  for  him  on  the  landing,  her  fresh  clean- 
ness in  fragrant  contrast  to  the  forlorn  untidiness  of  the 
stairways.  They  went  into  her  parlor  together  and  he 
began  to  speak  at  once. 

"I  got  your  letter.   No;  I  won't  sit  down.   I — 

"My  soul  and  body!  You're  all  in!"  Lily  said,  startled. '' 
"Let  me  get  you  some  whisky — " 

"No,  please,  nothing!  Lily,  I'm  .  .  .  awfully  sorry.  I 
—I'll  do  what  I  can.  I—" 

She  put  her  hands  over  her  face;  he  went  on  mechan- 
ically, with  his  carefully  prepared  sentences,  ending  with: 

"There's  no  reason  why  we  should  meet  any  more. 
But  I  want  you  to  know  that  the — the — it,  will  be  taken 
care  of.  My  lawyer  will  see  you  about  it;  I'll  have  it 
placed  somewhere." 

She  dropped  her  hands  and  looked  at  him,  her  little, 
pretty  face  amazed  and  twitching:  "Do  you  mean  you'll 
take  my  baby?" 

"I'll  see  that  it's  provided  for." 

"I  ain't  that  kind  of  a  girl!"  They  were  standing,  one 
on  either  side  of  a  highly  varnished  table,  on  which,  on 
a  little  brass  tray,  a  cigarette  stub  was  still  smoldering. 
"/  don't  want  anything  out  of  you" — Lily  paused;  then 
said,  "Mr.  Curtis" — (the  fact  that  she  didn't  call  him 
"Curt"  showed  her  recognition  of  a  change  in  their  rela- 
tionship)— "I'm  not  on  the  grab.  I  can  keep  on  at  Mar- 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  143 

stem's  for  quite  a  bit.  All  I  want  is  just  if  you  can  help 
me  in  February?  But  I'll  never  give  my  baby  up!  My 
first  one  died." 

"Your  first—  " 

"So  I'll  never,  never  give  it  up!"  Her  shallow,  honest, 
amber-colored  eyes  overflowed  with  bliss.  "I'll  just 
love  it!"  she  said. 

Maurice  felt  an  almost  physical  collapse;  neither  he 
nor  Henry  Houghton  had  reckoned  on  maternal  love. 
Mr.  Houghton  had  implied  that  Lily's  kind  did  not  have 
maternal  love.  "She'll  leave  it  on  a  convenient  doorstep 
— unless  she's  a  white  blackbird,"  Henry  Houghton  had 
said.  Maurice,  too,  had  taken  for  granted  Lily's  eager- 
ness to  get  rid  of  the  child.  In  his  amazement  now,  at 
this  revelation  of  an  unknown  Lily — a  white  blackbird 
Lily! — he  began,  angrily,  to  argue:  "It  is  impossible  for 
you  to  keep  it!  Impossible!  I  won't  permit  it — " 

"I  wouldn't  give  it  up  for  anything  in  the  world!  I'll 
take  care  of  it.  You  needn't  worry  for  fear  I'll  put  it  onto 
you." 

"But  I  won't  have  you  keep  it!  I  promise  you  I'll 
look  after  it.  You  must  go  away,  somewhere.  Anywhere ! " 

"But  I  don't  want  to  leave  Mercer,"  she  said,  simply. 

In  his  despairing  confusion,  he  sat  down  on  the  little 
bowlegged  sofa  and  looked  at  her;  Lily,  sitting  beside  him, 
put  her  hand  on  his — which  quivered  at  the  touch.  "Don't 
you  worry!  I'd  never  play  you  any  mean  trick.  You 
treated  me  good,  and  I'll  never  treat  you  mean;  I  'ain't 
forgot  the  way  you  handed  it  out  to  Batty!  I'll  never 
let  on  to  anybody.  Say — I  believe  you're  afraid  I'll  try 
a  hold-up  on  you  some  day?  Why,  Mr.  Curtis,  I  wouldn't 
do  a  thing  like  that — no,  not  for  a  million  dollars !  Look 
here;  if  it  will  make  you  easy  in  your  mind,  I'll  put  it 
down  in  writing;  I'll  say  it  ain't  yours!  Will  that  make 
you  easy  in  your  mind?"  Her  kind  eyes  were  full  of 
anxious  pity  for  him.  "I'll  do  anything  for  you,  but  I 
won't  give  up  my  baby." 

She  was  trying  to  help  him!    He  was  so  angry  and  so 


144  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

frightened  that  he  felt  sick  at  his  stomach;  but  he  knew 
that  she  was  trying  to  help  him! 

"You  see,"  she  explained,  "the  first  one  died;  now  I'm  ] 
going  to  have  another,  and  you  bet  I'm  going  to  have 
things  nice  for  her !  I'm  going  to  buy  a  parlor  organ.  And 
I'll  have  her  learned  to  play.  It's  going  to  be  a  girl.  Oh, 
won't  I  dress  her  pretty!  But  I'll  never  come  down  on 
you  about  her.  Now,  don't  you  worry." 

The  generosity  of  her!  She'd  "put  it  down  in  writing"! 
"I  told  Uncle  Henry  she  was  white,"  he  thought.  But 
in  spite  of  her  whiteness  his  blue  eyes  were  wide  with 
horror;  all  those  plans,  of  Lily  in  another  city,  and  an 
unacknowledged  child,  in  still  another  city — for  of  course 
it  could  not  be  in  Mercer  any  more  than  Lily  could! — 
all  these  safe  arrangements  faded  into  a  swift  vision  of 
Lily,  in  this  apartment,  with  it!  Lily,  meeting  him  on  the 
street! — a  flash  of  imagination  showed  him  Lily,  pushing 
a  baby  carriage!  For  just  a  moment  sheer  terror  made 
that  dead  Youth  of  his  stir. 

"You  can't  keep  it!"  he  said  again,  hoarsely;  "I  tell 
you,  I  won't  allow  it!  I'll  look  after  it.  But  I  won't  have 
it  here!  And  I  won't  ever  see  you." 

"You  needn't,"  she  said,  reassuringly;  "and  I'll  never 
bother  you.  That  ain't  me ! " 

He  was  dumb. 

"An'  look,"  she  said,  cheerfully;  "honest,  it's  better  for 
you.  What  would  you  do,  looking  after  a  little  girl? 
Why,  you  couldn't  even  curl  her  hair  in  the  mornings!" 
Maurice  shuddered.  "And  I'll  never  ask  you  for  a  cent,  if 
you  can  just  make  it  convenient  to  help  me  in  February? " 

"Of  course  I'll  help  you,"  he  said;  then,  suddenly,  his 
anger  fell  into  despair.  "Oh,  what  a  damned  fool  I  was!" 

"All  gentlemen  are,"  she  tried  to  comfort  him.  Her 
generosity  made  him  blush.  Added  to  his  shame  because 
of  what  he  had  done  to  Eleanor,  was  a  new  shame  at  his 
own  thoughts  about  this  little,  kind,  bad,  honest  woman ! 
"Look  here,"  Lily  said;  "if  you're  strapped,  never  mind 
about  helping  me.  They'll  take  you  at  the  Maternity  free, 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  145 

if  you  can't  pay.  So  I'll  go  there ;  and  I'll  say  I'm  married ; 
I'll  say  my  husband  was  Mr.  George  Dale,  and  he's 
dead;  I'll  never  peep  your  name.  Now,  don't  you  worry! 
I'll  keep  on  at  Marston's  for  four  months,  anyway.  Yes; 
I'll  buy  me  a  ring  and  call  myself  Mrs.  Dale;  I  guess  I'll 
say  Mrs.  Robert  Dale;  Robert's  a  classier  name  than 
George.  And  nobody  can  say  anything  to  my  baby." 

"Of  course  I'll  give  you  whatever  you  need  for — when — 
when  it's  born,"  he  said.  He  was  fumbling  with  his 
pocketbook;  he  had  nothing  more  to  say  about  leaving 
Mercer. 

She  took  the  money  doubtfully.  "I  won't  want  it  yet 
awhile,"  she  said. 

"I'll  make  it  more  if  I  can,"  he  told  her;  he  got  up, 
hesitated,  then  put  out  his  hand.  For  a  single  instant, 
just  for  her  pluck,  he  was  almost  fond  of  her.  ' '  Take  care 
of  yourself,"  he  said,  huskily;  and  the  next  minute  he  was 
plunging  down  those  three  flights  of  unswept  stairs  to  the 
street.  "My  own  fault — my  own  fault,"  he  said,  again; 
"oh,  what  a  cussed,  cussed,  cussed  fool!" 

It  was  over,  this  dreadful  interview !  this  looking  at  the 
dead  face  of  his  Youth.  Over,  and  he  was  back  again 
just  where  he  was  when  he  came  in.  Nothing  settled. 
Lily — who  was  so  much  more  generous  than  he! — would 
still  be  in  Mercer,  waiting  for  this  terrible  child.  His  child! 

He  had  accomplished  nothing,  and  he  saw  before  him 
the  dismaying  prospect  of  admitting  his  failure  to  Mr. ; 
Houghton.  The  only  comfort  in  the  whole  hideous  business 
was  that  he  wouldn't  have  to  pull  a  lawyer  into  it,  and 
pay  a  big  fee !   He  was  frantic  with  worry  about  expense. 
Well,  he  must  strike  Mr.  Weston  for  a  raise!  .  .  .  which  ' 
he  wouldn't  tell  Eleanor  about.    A  second  step  into  the 
bog  of  Secrecy! 

When  he  got  home,  Eleanor,  in  the  dingy  third-floor 
front,  was  waiting  for  him,  alert  and  tender,  and  gay  with 
purpose:  "Maurice!  I've  counted  expenses,  and  I'm  sure 
we  can  go  to  housekeeping !    And  I  can  have  little  Bingo. ; 
Mrs.  O'Brien  says  he's  just  pining  away  for  me!" 


i46  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

"We  can't  afford  it,"  he  said  again,  doggedly. 

"I  believe,"  she  said,  "you  like  this  horrid  place,  be- 
cause you  have  people  to  talk  to!" 

"It's  well  enough, "  he  said.  He  was  standing  with  his 
back  to  her,  his  clenched  hands  in  his  pockets,  staring 
out  of  the  window.  His  very  attitude,  the  stubbornness  of 
his  shoulders,  showed  his  determination  not  to  go  to  house- 
keeping. 

"What  is  the  matter,  Maurice?"  she  said,  her  voice 
trembling.  "You  are  not  happy!  Oh,  what  can  I  do?" 
she  said,  despairingly. 

"I  am  as  happy  as  I  deserve  to  be,"  he  said,  without 
turning  his  head. 

She  came  and  stood  beside  him,  resting  her  cheek  on 
his  shoulder.  "Oh,"  she  said,  passionately,  "if  I  only  had 
a  child!  You  are  disappointed  because  we  have  no — " 

His  recoil  was  so  sharp  that  she  could  not  finish  her 
sentence,  but  clutched  at  his  arm  to  steady  herself;  before 
she  could  reproach  him  for  his  abruptness  he  had  caught 
up  his  hat  and  left  the  room.  She  stood  there  quivering. 
"He  would  be  happier  and  love  me  more,  if  we  had  a 
child!"  she  said  again.  She  thought  of  the  joy  with 
which,  when  they  first  went  to  housekeeping,  she  had 
bought  that  foolish,  pretty  nursery  paper — and  again  the 
old  disappointment  ached  under  her  breastbone.  Tears 
were  just  ready  to  overflow;  but  there  was  a  knock  at  the 
door  and  old  Mrs.  O'Brien  came  in  with  her  basket  of 
laundry;  she  gave  her  beloved  Miss  Eleanor  a  keen  look. 
"It's  worried  you  are,  my  dear?  It  ain't  the  wash,  is  it?" 

Eleanor  tried  to  laugh,  but  the  laugh  ended  in  a  sob. 
"No.  It's — it's  only — "  Then  she  said  something  in  a 
whisper. 

"No  baby?  Bless  you,  he  don't  want  no  babies!  What 
would  a  handsome  young  man  like  him  be  wanting  a 
baby  for?  No!  And  it  would  take  your  good  looks,  my 
dear.  Keep  handsome,  Miss  Eleanor,  and  you  needn't 
worry  about  babies!  And  say,  Miss  Eleanor,  never  let  on 
to  him  if  you  see  him  give  a  look  at  any  of  his  lady  friends. 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  147 

I'm  old,  my  dear,  but  I  noticed,  with  all  my  husbands — 
and  I've  had  three — that  if  you  tell  'em  you  see  'em  lookin' 
at  other  ladies,  they'll  look  again! — just  to  spite  you. 
Don't  notice  'em,  and  they'll  not  do  it.  Men  is  children." 

Eleanor,  laughing  in  spite  of  her  pain,  said  Mr.  Curtis 
didn't  "look  at  other  ladies;  but — but,"  she  said,  wist- 
fully, "I  hope  I'll  have  a  baby."  Then  she  wiped  her 
eyes,  hugged  old  O'Brien,  and  promised  to  "quit  worry- 
ing." But  she  didn't  "quit,"  for  Maurice's  face  did  not 
lighten. 

Henry  Houghton,  too,  saw  the  aging  heaviness  of  the 
young  face  when,  having  received  the  report  of  that  inter- 
view with  Lily,  he  came  down  to  Mercer  to  go  over  the 
whole  affair  and  see  what  must  be  done.  But  there  was 
nothing  to  be  done.  Up  in  his  room  in  the  hotel  he  and 
Maurice  thrashed  it  all  out : 

"She  prefers  to  stay  in  Mercer,"  Maurice  explained; 
"and  she'll  stay.  There's  nothing  I  can  do;  absolutely 
nothing!  But  she'll  play  fair.  I'm  not  afraid  of  Lily." 

If  Mr.  Houghton  wished,  uneasily,  that  his  ward  was 
afraid  of  Lily,  he  did  not  say  so.  He  only  told  Maurice 
Ugain  that  he  was  "betting  on  him." 

"You  won't  lose,"  Maurice  said,  laconically. 

"Perhaps,"  Henry  Houghton  said,  doubtfully,  "I  ought 
to  say  that  Mrs.  Houghton — who  is  the  wisest  woman  I 
know,  as  well  as  the  best — has  an  idea  that  in  matters  of 
this  sort,  frankness  is  the  best  course.  But  in  your  case 
(of  which,  of  course,  she  knows  nothing)  I  don't  agree 
frith  her." 

"It  would  be  impossible,"  Maurice  said,  briefly.  And 
his  guardian,  whose  belief  in  secrecy  had  been  shaken, 
momentarily,  by  his  Mary's  opinion,  felt  that,  so  long  as 
he  had  quoted  her,  his  conscience  was  clear.  So  he  only 
told  the  boy  again  he  was  sure  he  could  bet  on  him !  And 
because  shame,  and  those  bleak  words  "my  own  fault," 
kept  the  spiritual  part  of  Maurice  alive, — (and  because 
Lily  was  a  white  blackbird!)  the  bet  stood. 

But  he  made  no  promises  about  the  future.    However 


i48  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

much  of  a  liar  Maurice  was  going  to  be,  to  Eleanor,  he 
would  not,  he  told  himself,  lie  to  this  old  friend  by  saying 
he  would  never  see  Lily  again.  The  truth  was,  some  inar- 
ticulate moral  instinct  made  him  know  that  there  would 
come  a  time  when  he  would  have  to  see  her.  .  .  .  During 
all  that  winter,  when  he  sat,  night  after  night,  at  Miss 
Ladd's  dinner  table,  and  Eleanor  fended  off  Miss  Moore 
and  the  widow,  or  when,  in  those  long  evenings  in  their 
own  room  they  played  solitaire,  he  was  thinking  of  Lily, 
thinking  of  that  inner  summons  to  what  he  called  "de- 
cency," which  would,  he  knew,  drive  him — in  three  months 
— in  two  months — in  one  month ! — to  Lily's  door.  By  and 
by  it  was  three  weeks — two  weeks — one  week!  Then 
came  days  when  he  said,  in  terror,  "I'll  go  to-morrow." 
And  again:  " To-morrow,  I  must  go.  Damn  it!  I  must!" 
So  at  last,  he  went,  lashed  and  driven  by  that  mastering 
"decency"! 

He  had  bought  a  box  of  roses,  and,  looping  two  fingers 
through  its  strings,  he  walked  twice  around  the  block  past 
the  ugly  apartment  house  before  he  could  make  up  his 
mind  to  enter.  He  wondered  whether  Lily  had  died? 
Women  do  die,  sometimes.  ''Of  course  I  don't  want  any- 
thing to  happen  to  her;  but — "  Then  he  wondered,  with 
a  sudden  pang  of  hope,  if  anything  had  happened  to — It? 
"They're  born  dead,  sometimes!"  Nothing  wrong  in 
wishing  that,  for  the  Thing  would  be  better  off  dead  than 
alive.  He  wished  he  was  dead  himself!  .  .  .  The  third 
time  he  came  to  the  apartment  house  the  string  of  the  box 
was  cutting  into  his  fingers,  and  that  made  him  stop,  and 
set  his  teeth,  and  push  open  the  door  of  the  vestibule,  j  He 
touched  the  button  under  the  name  "Dale,"  and  called 
up,  huskily,  "Is  Miss — Mrs.  Dale  in?"  A  brisk  voice 
asked  his  name.  "A  friend  of  Mrs.  Dale's,"  he  said,  very 
low.  There  seemed  to  be  a  colloquy  somewhere,  and  then 
he  was  told  to  "come  right  along ! "  He  turned  to  the  stair- 
way, and  as  he  walked  slowly  up,  it  came  into  his  mind  that 
this  was  the  way  a  man  might  climb  the  scaffold  steps: 
Step  .  .  .  Step  .  .  .  Step — his  very  feet  refusing !  Step  .  .  . 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  i49 

Step — and  Lily's  door.  The  nurse,  who  met  him  on  the 
landing,  said  Mrs.  Dale  would  be  glad  to  see  him.  .  .  . 

She  was  in  bed,  very  white  and  radiant,  and  with  a 
queer,  blanketed  bundle  on  one  arm;  if  she  was,  as  the 
nurse  said,  "glad  to  see  him,"  she  did  not  show  it.  She 
was  too  absorbed  in  some  gladness  of  her  own  to  feel  any 
other  kind  of  gladness.  As  Maurice  handed  her  the  box 
of  roses,  she  smiled  vaguely  and  said,  "Why,  you're  real 
kind!"  Then  she  said,  eagerly,  "He  was  born  the  day  the 
pink  hyacinth  came  out!  Want  to  see  him?"  Her  voice 
thrilled  with  joy.  Without  waiting  for  his  answer — or 
even  giving  a  look  at  the  roses  the  nurse  was  lifting  out  of 
their  waxed  papers,  she  raised  a  fold  of  the  blanket  and  her 
eyes  seemed  to  feed  on  the  little  red  face  with  its  tightly 
shut  eyes  and  tiny  wet  lips. 

Maurice  looked — and  his  heart  seemed  to  drop,  shud- 
dering, in  his  breast.  "How  nasty!"  he  thought;  but 
aloud  he  said,  stammering,  "Why  it's — quite  a  baby." 

"You  may  hold  him,"  she  said;  there  was  a  passionate 
generosity  in  her  voice. 

Maurice  tried  to  cover  his  recoil  by  saying,  "Oh,  I 
might  drop  it." 

Lily  was  not  looking  at  him;  it  seemed  as  if  she  was 
glad  not  to  give  up  the  roll  of  blankets,  even  for  a  minute. 
"He's  perfectly  lovely.  He's  a  reg'lar  rascal!  The  doc- 
tor said  he  was  a  wonderful  child.  I'm  going  to  have  him 
christened  Ernest  Augustus ;  I  want  a  swell  name.  But  I'll 
call  him  Jacky."  She  strained  her  head  sidewise  to  kiss  the 
red,  puckered  flesh,  that  looked  like  a  face,  and  in  which 
suddenly  a  little  orifice  showed  itself,  from  which  came  a 
small,  squeaking  sound.  Maurice,  under  the  shock  of  that 
sound,  stood  rigid;  but  Lily's  feeble  arms  cuddled  the 
bundle  against  her  breast;  she  said,  "Sweety — Sweety — 
Sweety!" 

The  young  man  sat  there  speechless.  .  .  .  This  terrible 
squirming  piece  of  flesh — was  part  of  himself !  "I  wouldn't 
touch  it  for  a  million  dollars!"  he  was  thinking.  He  got 
up  and  said:  "Good-by.  I  hope  you — " 


iSo  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

Lily  was  not  listening;  she  said  good-by  without  lifting 
her  eyes  from  the  child's  face. 

Maurice  stumbled  out  to  the  staircase,  with  little  cold 
thrills  running  down  his  back.  The  experience  of  recog- 
nizing the  significance  of  what  he  had  done — the  setting 
in  motion  that  stupendous  and  eternal  Exfoliating,  called 
Life;  the  seeing  a  Thing,  himself,  separated  from  himself; 
himself,  going  on  in  spite  of  himself! — brought  a  surge 
of  engulfing  horror.  This  elemental  shock  is  not  unknown 
to  men  who  look  for  the  first  time  at  their  first-born; 
instantly  the  feeling  may  disappear,  swallowed  up  in 
love  and  pride.  But  where,  as  with  Maurice,  there  is 
neither  pride  nor  love,  the  shock  remains.  His  organic 
dismay  was  so  overwhelming  that  he  said  to  himself  he 
would  never  see  Lily  again — because  he  would  not  see  It ! 
— which  was,  in  fact,  "/#,"  instead  of  the  girl  Lily  had 
wanted.  But  though  his  spiritual  disgust  for  what  he 
called,  in  his  own  mind,  "the  whole  hideous  business,"  did 
not  lessen,  he  did,  later,  through  the  pressure  of  those 
heavy  words,  "my  own  fault,"  go  to  see  Lily — she  had 
taken  a  little  house  out  in  Medfield — just  to  put  down 
on  the  table,  awkwardly,  an  envelope  with  some  bills  in 
it.  He  didn't  inquire  about  It,  and  he  got  out  of  the 
house  as  quickly  as  possible. 

Lily  had  no  resentment  at  his  lack  of  feeling  for  the 
child;  the  baby  was  so  entirely  hers  that  she  did  not  think 
of  it  as  his,  too.  This  sense  of  possession,  never  menaced 
on  Maurice's  part  by  even  a  flicker  of  interest  in  the  little 
thing,  kept  them  to  the  furtive  and  very  formal  acquaint- 
ance of  giving  and  receiving  what  money  he  could  spare 
— or,  oftener,  couldn't  spare!  As  a  result,  he  thought  of 
Jacky  only  in  relation  to  his  income.  Every  time  some 
personal  expenditure  tempted  him,  he  summed  up  the 
child's  existence  in  four  disgusted  and  angry  words,  "I 
can't  afford  it."  But  it  was  for  Lily's  sake,  not  Jacky's, 
that  he  economized !  He  was  wretchedly  aware  that  if  it 
had  not  been  for  Jacky,  Lily  might  still  be  a  "saleslady" 
at  Marston's,  earning  good  wages.  Instead,  she  was  taking 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  151 

lodgers — and  it  was  not  easy  to  get  them! — so  that  she 
could  be  at  home  and  look  after  the  baby. 

Maurice  aged  ten  years  in  that  first  winter  of  rigid  and 
unexplainable  penuriousness,  and  of  a  secrecy  which  meant 
perilous  skirtings  of  downright  lying;  for  Eleanor  occa- 
sionally asked  why  they  had  so  little  money  to  spend? 
He  had  requested  a  raise — and  not  mentioned  to  Eleanor 
the  fact  that  he  had  got  it.  When  she  complained  because 
his  salary  was  so  low,  he  told  her  Weston  was  paying  him 
all  he  was  worth,  and  he  wouldn't  strike  for  more !  "So  it's 
impossible  to  go  to  housekeeping,"  he  said — for  of  course 
she  continued  to  urge  housekeeping,  saying  that  she 
couldn't  understand  why  they  had  to  be  so  economical! 
But  he  refused,  patiently.  To  be  patient,  Maurice  did 
not  need,  now,  to  remind  himself  of  the  mountain  and 
her  faithfulness  to  him;  he  had  only  to  remind  himself 
of  the  yellow-brick  apartment  house,  and  his  faithlessness , 
to  her.  "I've  got  to  be  kind,  or  I'd  be  a  skunk,"  he  used 
to  think.  So  he  was  very  kind.  He  did  not  burst  out  at 
her  with  irritated  mortification  when  she  telephoned  to 
the  office  to  know  if  "  Mr.  Curtis's  headache  was  better  " ; — 
he  had  suffered  so  much  that  he  had  gone  beyond  the  self- 
consciousness  of  mortification ; — and  he  walked  with  her  in 
the  park  on  Sunday  afternoons  to  exercise  Bingo ;  and  on 
their  anniversary  he  sat  beside  her  in  the  grass,  under  the 
locust  tree,  and  watched  the  river — their  river,  which  had 
brought  Lily  into  his  life ! — and  listened  to  the  lovely  voice : 

"0  thou  with  dewy  locks  who  lookest  down!" 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  next  fall,  however,  the  boarding  did  come  to  an 
end,  and  they  went  to  housekeeping.  It  was  Mrs. 
Houghton  who  brought  this  about.  Edith  was  to  enter 
Fern  Hill  School  in  the  fall,  and  her  mother  had  an  in- 
spiration: "Let  her  board  with  Eleanor  and  Maurice! 
The  trolley  goes  right  out  to  Medfield,  and  it  will  be  very 
convenient  for  her.  Also,  it  will  help  them  with  ex- 
penses," Mrs.  Houghton  said,  comfortably. 

"But  why  can't  she  live  at  the  school?"  Edith's  father 
objected,  with  a  troubled  look;  somehow,  he  did  not  like 
the  idea  of  his  girl  in  that  pathetic  household,  which  was 
at  once  so  conscious  and  so  unconscious  of  its  own  insta- 
bility! "Why  does  she  have  to  be  with  Eleanor  and 
Maurice?"  Henry  Houghton  said. 

"Eleanor  has  the  refinement  that  a  hobbledehoy  like 
Edith  needs,"  Mrs.  Houghton  explained;  "and  I  think 
the  child  will  have  better  food  than  at  Fern  Hill.  School 
food  is  always  horrid." 

"But  won't  Eleanor's  dullness  afflict  Buster?"  he  said, 
doubtfully;  then — because  at  that  moment  Edith  banged 
into  the  room  to  show  her  shuddering  mother  a  garter 
snake  she  had  captured — he  added,  with  complacent 
subtlety,  "as  for  food,  I,  personally,  prefer  a  dinner  of 
herbs  with  an  interesting  woman,  than  a  stalled  ox  and 
Eleanor." 

Which  caused  Edith  to  say,  "Is  Eleanor  uninteresting, 
father?" 

"Good  heavens,  no!"  said  Mr.  Houghton,  with  an 
alarmed  look;  "of  course  she  isn't!  What  put  such  an 
idea  into  your  head?"  And  as  Buster  and  her  squirming 
prize  departed,  he  told  his  Mary  that  her  daughter  was 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  153 

destroying  his  nervous  system.  "She'll  repeat  that  to 
Eleanor,"  he  groaned. 

His  wife  had  no  sympathy  for  him;  "You  deserve  any- 
thing you  may  get!"  she  said,  severely;  and  proceeded  to 
write  to  Eleanor  to  make  her  proposition.  If  they  cared  to 
take  Edith,  she  said,  they  could  hire  a  house  and  stop 
boarding — "which  is  dreadful  for  both  of  your  digestions; 
and  I  will  be  glad  if  this  plan  appeals  to  you,  to  feel 
that  Edith  is  with  anyone  who  has  such  gentle  manners 
as  you." 

Eleanor,  reading  the  friendly  words  at  the  boarding- 
house  breakfast  table,  said  quickly  to  herself,  "I  don't 
want  her.  .  .  .  She  would  monopolize  Maurice!"  Then 
she  hesitated;  "He  would  be  more  comfortable  in  a 
house  of  his  own.  .  .  .  But  Edith?  Oh,  I  don't  want 
her!" 

She  turned  to  show  the  letter  to  Maurice,  but  he  was 
sitting  sidewise,  one  arm  over  the  back  of  his  chair,  in 
vociferous  discussion  with  a  fellow  boarder.  "No,  sir!" 
he  was  declaring;  "if  they  revise  the  rules  again,  they'll 
revise  the  guts  out  of  the  whole  blessed  game;  they'll 
make  it  all  muscle  and  no  mind." 

"But  football  isn't  any  intellectual  stunt,"  the  other 
boarder  insisted. 

"It  is — to  a  degree.    The  old  flying  wedge — " 

"Maurice!"  Eleanor  said  again;  but  Maurice,  impas- 
sioned about  "rules,"  didn't  even  hear  her.  She  gave  his 
arm  a  little  friendly  shake.  "Maurice!  You  are  the  limit, 
with  your  old  football!" 

He  turned,  laughing,  and  took  the  letter  from  her  hand. 
As  he  read  it,  his  face  changed  sharply.  "But  Fern  Hill 
is  in  Medfield!"  he  exclaimed. 

"I  suppose  she  could  take  the  trolley  almost  to  the 
school  grounds,"  Eleanor  conceded,  reluctantly. 

"Why  can't  she  live  out  there?  It's  a  boarding  school, 
isn't  it?"  (She  might  meet  Lily  on  the  car!) 

For  a  moment  she  accepted  his  decision  with  relief; 
then  the  thought  of  his  comfort  urged  her:  "I  know  of 


:iS4  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

•an  awfully  attractive  house,  with  a  garden.  Little  Bingo 
could  hide  his  bones  in  it." 

"No,"  he  said,  sharply;  "it  wouldn't  do.  I  don't  want 
her." 

Instantly  Eleanor  was  buoyantly  ready  to  have  Edith 
...  he  "didn't  want  her!"  When  Maurice  rose  from  the 
table  she  went  to  the  front  door  with  him,  detaining  him — 
until  the  pretty  school-teacher  was  well  on  her  way  down 
the  street; — with  tender  charges  to  take  care  of  himself. 
Then,  in  the  darkness  of  the  hall,  with  Maurice  very  un- 
easy lest  some  one  might  see  them,  she  kissed  him  good-by. 
"If  we  could  afford  to  keep  house  without  taking  Edith," 
she  said,  "I'd  rather  not  have  her.  (Kiss  me  again — no- 
body's looking!)  But  we  can't.  So  let's  have  her. " 

"In  two  years  I'll  have  my  own  money,"  he  reminded 
her;  "this  hard  sledding  is  only  temporary."  But  she 
looked  so  disappointed  that  he  hesitated;  after  all,  if  she 
wanted  a  house  so  much  he  ought  not  to  stand  in  the  way. 
Poor  Eleanor  hadn't  much  fun!  And,  as  far  as  he  was 
concerned,  he  would  like  to  have  Edith  around.  "It's 
only  the  Medfield  part  of  it  I  don't  like,"  he  told  himself. 
Yet  Lily,  on  Maple  Street,  a  mile  from  Fern  Hill,  was  a 
needle  in  a  haystack!  (And  even  if  Edith  should  ever  see 
her,  she  wouldn't  know  her.)  .  .  .  "If  you  really  want  to 
have  her,"  he  told  Eleanor,  "go  ahead." 

So  that  was  how  it  happened  that  Edith  burst  in  upon 
Eleanor's  dear  domesticity  of  two.  Maurice,  having  once 
agreed  to  his  wife's  wish,  was  rather  pleased  at  the  pros- 
pect. "It  will  help  on  money,"  he  thought;  "another 
hundred  a  year  will  come  in  handy  to  Lily.  And  it  will  be 
sort  of  nice  to  have  Buster  in  the  house." 

Lily  had  not  said  she  must  have  another  hundred.  She 
did  not  even  think  so.  "/  can  swing  it!"  Lily  had  said, 
sturdily.  And  she  did;  but  of  course,  as  Maurice,  to  his 
intense  discomfort,  knew  only  too  well,  it  was  hard  to 
swing  it.  Even  with  what  help  he  could  give  her,  she 
couldn't  possibly  have  got  along  if  she  had  not  been  aston- 
ishingly efficient  and  thrifty,  always  looking  at  both  sides 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  155 

of  a  cent!  "I  ain't  smoking  any  more,"  Lily  said  once; 
"well,  'tain't  only  to  save  money;  but  I  don't  want  Jacky 
to  be  getting  any  funny  ideas ! "  (this  when  "Ernest  Augus- 
tus "  was  only  a  few  months  old !)  She  had  a  tiny  house  on 
Maple  Street,  with  a  sun-baked  front  yard,  in  which  a  few 
shrubs  caught  the  dust  on  their  meager  foliage;  and  she 
had  a  border  of  pansies  in  the  shade  under  the  bay 
window; — "I  must  have  flowers ! "  Lily  said,  apologetically; 
— and  she  had  three  roomers,  and  she  had  scraped  the 
locality  for  mealers.  She  would  have  made  more  money  if 
she  had  not  fed  her  boarders  so  well.  "But  there!"  said 
Lily;  " if  I  give 'em  nice  food,  they '11  stay !"  But,  all  the 
same,  Maurice  knew  that  two  or  three  dollars  more  a  week 
would  "come  in  handy."  His  sense  of  irritated  responsi- 
bility about  her  made  him  long  for  that  twenty-fifth  birth- 
day which  would  bring  him  his  own  money.  For,  in  spite 
of  Lily's  thriftiness,  her  expenses,  as  well  as  her  toil,  kept 
increasing,  and  Maurice,  cursing  himself  whenever  he 
thought  that  but  for  him  she  would  be  "on  easy  street"  at 
Marston's,  had  begun  the  inevitable  borrowing.  The  pay- 
ment of  the  interest  on  his  note  was  a  tax  on  his  salary; 
yet  not  so  taxing  as  the  necessity  of  being  constantly  on 
guard  against  some  careless  word  which  might  make 
Eleanor  ask  questions  about  that  salary. 

But  Eleanor  asked  very  few  questions  about  anything 
so  practical  as  income.  Her  interest  in  money  matters, 
now,  in  regard  to  Edith,  was  merely  that  Edith  was  a 
means  to  an  end — Maurice  could  have  his  own  home! 
The  finding  a  house,  under  Mrs.  Newbolt's  candid  guid- 
ance— and  Maurice's  worried  reminders  that  he  couldn't 
"afford"  more  than  so  much  rent! — gave  Eleanor  the 
pleasantest  summer  she  had  had  since  that  first  summer 
when,  in  the  meadow,  she  and  Maurice  had  watched  the 
clouds,  and  the  locust  blossoms,  and  told  each  other  that 
nothing  in  heaven  or  earth,  or  the  waters  under  the  earth, 
could  part  them.  .  .  . 

The  old  house  they  finally  secured  was  in  an  unfashion- 
able locality ;  there  was  a  tailor  shop  next  door  and  an  un- ' 


i56  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

dertaker  across  the  street,  and  a  clanging  trolley  car 
screeched  on  the  curve  at  the  end  of  the  block;  but  the 
dignity  of  the  pillared  doorway,  and  the  carved  window 
casings,  had  appealed  to  Maurice;  and  also  the  discovery  in 
the  parlor,  behind  a  monstrous  air-tight  stove,  of  a  bricked- 
up  fireplace  (which  he  promptly  tore  open),  all  combined  to 
make  undertakers  and  tailors,  as  neighbors,  unimportant ! 
On  the  rear  of  the  house  was  an  iron  veranda — roped  with 
wistaria;  below,  inclosed  in  a  crumbling  brick  wall,  was 
the  back  yard — "Garden,  if  you  please!"  Maurice  an- 
nounced— for  Bingo's  bones.  Clumps  of  Madonna  lilies 
had  bloomed  here,  and  died,  and  bloomed  again,  for 
almost  a  century;  the  yard  was  shaded  by  a  silver  poplar, 
which  would  gray  and  whiten  in  the  wind  in  hot  weather, 
or  delicately  etch  itself  against  a  wintry  sky.  A  little  path, 
with  moss  between  the  bricks  and  always  damp  in  the 
shadow  of  the  poplar,  led  from  the  basement  door  to  an 
iron  gate;  through  its  rusty  bars  one  could  see,  a  block 
away,  the  slipping  gleam  of  the  river,  hurrying  down  from 
"their  meadow,"  to  disappear  under  the  bridge.  Maurice 
said  he  would  build  a  seat  around  the  poplar,  "...  and 
well  put  a  table  under  it,  and  paint  it  green,  and  have 
tea  there  in  the  afternoon!  Skeezics  will  like  that." 

"Edith  looks  healthy,"  said  Mrs.  Newbolt;  "my  dear 
father  used  to  say  he  liked  healthy  females.  Old-fashioned 
word — females.  Well,  I'm  afraid  dear  father  liked  'em 
too  much.  But  my  dear  mother — she  was  a  Dennison — 
pretended  not  to  see  it.  She  had  sense.  Great  thing  in 
married  life,  to  have  sense,  and  know  what  not  to  see! 
Pity  Edith's  not  musical.  Have  you  a  cook?  I  believe 
she'd  have  caught  you,  Maurice,  if  Eleanor  hadn't  got  in 
ahead!  I  brought  a  chocolate  drop  for  Bingo.  Here, 
Bingo!" 

Bingo,  silky  and  snarly,  climbed  on  to  her  steeply  slop- 
ing black-satin  lap,  ate  the  chocolate  drop — keeping  all 
the  while  a  liquid  and  adoring  eye  upon  his  mistress — 
then  slid  down  and  ran  to  curl  up  on  Eleanor's  skirt. 

By  September  the  moving  and  seat  building  were  ac- 


complished — the  last  not  entirely  on  Edith's  account;  it 
was  part  of  Maurice's  painstaking  desire  to  do  something — 
anything! — for  "poor  Eleanor,"  as  he  named  her  in  his 
remorseful  thought.  There  was  never  a  day — indeed, 
there  was  not  often  an  hour! — when  his  own  meanness  to 
his  wife  (combined  with  disgust  at  being  a  liar)  did  not 
ache  somewhere  in  the  back  of  his  mind.  So  he  tried,  in 
all  sorts  of  anxious  ways,  to  please  her.  He  almost  never 
saw  Lily;  but  the  thought  of  her  often  brought  Eleanor 
a  box  of  candy  or  a  bunch  of  violets.  Such  expenditures 
were  slightly  easier  for  him  now,  because  he  had  had 
another  small  raise, — which  this  time  he  had  told  Eleanor 
about.  On  the  strength  of  it  he  said  to  himself  that  he 
supposed  he  ought  to  give  Lily  a  little  something  extra? 
So  on  the  day  when  Mrs.  Houghton  and  Edith  were  to 
arrive  in  Mercer,  he  went  out  to  Medfield  to  tell  Jacky's 
mother  that  she  might  count  on  a  few  dollars  more  each 
month.  The  last  time  he  had  seen  her,  Lily  had  told  him 
that  Jacky  "was  fussing  with  his  teeth  something  fierce, 
I  had  to  hire  a  little  girl  from  across  the  street,"  she  said, 
"to  take  him  out  in  the  perambulator,  or  else  I  couldn't 
"tend  to  my  cooking.  It  costs  money  to  live,  Mr.  Curtis," 
Lily  had  said,  "and  eggs  are  going  up,  awful!"  She  had 
never  gone  back  to  the  familiarity  of  those  days  when 
she  called  him  "Curt."  That  he,  dull  and  preoccupied; 
still  called  her  Lily  gave  her,  somehow,  such  a  respectful 
consciousness  of  his  superiority  that  she  had  hesitated  to 
speak  of  anything  so  intimate  as  eggs.  .  .  .  "Yes,  I 
must  give  her  something  extra,"  Maurice  thought,  remem- 
bering the  "cost"  of  living.  "Talk  about  paying  the 
piper!  I  bet  I'm  paying  him,  all  right!" 

He  was  to  meet  Mrs.  Houghton  at  seven-thirty  that 
night,  and  it  occurred  to  him  that  if  he  told  Eleanor  he 
had  some  extra  work  to  do  at  his  desk  he  could  wedge  this 
call  in  between  office  hours  and  the  time  when  he  must  go 
to  the  station — ("and  they  call  me  'G.  Washington'!") 
He  felt  no  special  cautiousness  in  going  out  to  Maple  Street; 
the  few  people  he  knew  in  Mercer  did  not  frequent  this 


iS8  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

locality,  and  if  any  of  them  should  chance  to  see  him — a 
most  remote  possibility! — why,  was  he  not  in  the  real- 
estate  business,  and  constantly  looking  at  houses?  On 
this  particular  afternoon,  jolting  along  in  the  trolley  car, 
he  grimly  amused  himself  with  the  thought  of  what  he 
would  do  if,  say,  Eleanor  herself  should  see  him  turning 
that  infernally  shrill  bell  on  Lily's  door.  It  was  a  wild 
flight  of  imagination,  for  Eleanor  never  would  see  him — 
never  could  see  him!  Eleanor,  who  only  went  to  Medfield 
when  their  wedding  anniversary  came  round,  and  she 
dragged  him  out  to  sit  by  the  river  and  sentimentalize! 
He  thought  of  the  loveliness  of  that  past  June — and  the 
contrasting  and  ironic  ugliness  of  the  present  September. 
.  .  .  Now,  the  little  secret  house  in  the  purlieus  of  Mer- 
cer's smoke  and  grime;  then,  the  river,  and  the  rippling 
tides  of  grass  and  clover,  and  the  blue  sky — and  that 
ass,  lying  at  the  feet  of  a  woman  old  enough  to  be  his 
mother ! 

He  laughed  as  he  swung  off  the  car — then  frowned ;  for  he 
saw  that  to  reach  Lily's  door  he  would  have  to  pass  a 
baby  carriage  standing  just  inside  the  gate.  He  didn't 
glance  into  the  carriage  at  the  roly-poly  youngster.  He 
never,  on  the  rare  occasions  when  he  went  to  see  Lily, 
looked  at  his  child  if  he  could  avoid  doing  so — and  she 
never  asked  him  to.  Once,  annoyed  at  Jacky's  shrill 
noisiness,  he  had  protested,  frowning:  "Can't  you  keep 
it  quiet?  It  needs  a  spanking!"  After  that  indifferent 
criticism  ("For  I  don't  care  how  she  brings  it  up!")  Lily 
had  not  wanted  him  to  see  her  baby.  She  could  not  have 
said  just  why — perhaps  it  was  fear  lest  Maurice  would 
notice  his  growing  perfection — but  when  Jacky's  father 
came  she  kept  Jacky  in  the  background !  On  this  Septem- 
ber afternoon  she  said,  as  she  opened  the  door: 

"Why,  you're  a  great  stranger!  Come  right  in!  Wait  a 
second  till  I  get  Jacky.  I've  just  nursed  him  and  I  put  him 
out  there  so  I  could  watch  him  while  I  scrubbed  the  porch." 
She  ran  out  to  the  gate,  then  pushed  the  carriage  up  the 
path. 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  159. 

"Let  me  help  you,"  Maurice  said,  politely;  adding  to 
himself,  "Damn — damn — !"  Stepping  backward,  he 
lifted  the  front  wheels,  and  with  Lily's  help  pulled  the 
perambulator  on  to  the  little  porch  and  over  the  threshold 
into  the  house — which  always  shone  with  immaculate  neat- 
ness and  ugly  comfort.  He  kept  his  eyes  away  from  the 
sleeping  face  on  the  pillow.  Together  they  got  the  carriage 
into  the  hall — Lily  fumbling  all  the  while  with  one  hand 
to  fasten  the  front  of  her  dress  and  skipping  a  button  or 
two  as  she  did  so;  but  he  had  a  glimpse  of  the  heavy 
abundance  of  her  bosom,  and  thought  to  himself  that, 
assthetically,  maternity  was  rather  unpleasant. 

"Go  on  into  the  parlor  and  sit  down,"  she  said;  "I'll 
put  him  in  the  kitchen."  She  pushed  the  elaborate  wicker 
perambulator,  adorned  with  bows  of  blue-satin  ribbon, 
down  a  dark  entry  smelling  of  very  good  soup  stock.  When 
she  came  back  she  found  Maurice,  his  hat  and  stick  in 
his  hands,  standing  in  her  tiny  front  room,  where  the  sunny 
window  was  full  of  geraniums  and  scraggly  rose  bushes. 
"I  got  'em  in  early.  And  I  dug  up  my  dahlias — I  was 
afraid  of  frost.  (Mercy !  I  must  clean  that  window  on  the 
outside !)  Well,  you  are  a  stranger ! "  she  said,  again,  good- 
naturedly.  Then  she  sighed:  "Mr.  Curtis,  Jacky  seems 
kind  o'  sick.  He's  been  coughing,  and  he's  hot.  Would 
you  send  for  a  doctor,  if  you  was  me?" 

"Why,  if  you're  worried,  yes,"  Maurice  said,  impa- 
tiently; "I  was  just  passing,  and —  No,  thank  you;  I 
won't  sit  down.  I  was  passing,  and  I  thought  I'd  look  in 
and  give  you  a — a  little  present.  If  the  youngster's  upset, 
it  will  come  in  well,"  he  ended,  as  his  hand  sought  his 
waistcoat  pocket.  Lily's  face  was  instantly  anxious. 

"What!  Did  you  think  he  looked  sick,  too?  I  was  kind  of 
worried,  but  if  you  noticed  it — " 

"I  didn't  in  the  least,"  he  said,  frowning;  "I  didn't 
look  at  him." 

"He  'ain't  never  been  what  you'd  call  sick,"  Lily  tried 
to  reassure  herself;  "he's  a  reg'lar  rascal ! "  she  ended,  ten- 
derly; her  eyes — those  curious  amber  eyes,  through  which 


i6o  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

sometimes  a  tigress  looks! — looked  now  at  Maurice  in 
passionate  motherhood. 

Maurice,  putting  the  money  down  on  the  table,  said, 
"  I  wish  I  could  do  more  for  you,  Lily;  but  I'm  dreadfully 
strapped." 

"Say,  now,  you  take  it  right  back!  I  can  get  along; 
I  got  my  two  upstairs  rooms  rented,  and  I've  got  a  new 
mealer.  And  if  Jacky  only  keeps  well,  I  can  manage  fine. 
But  that  girl  that's  been  wheeh'n'  him  has  measles  at  her 
house — little  slut!"  Lily  said  (the  yellow  eyes  glared); 
"she  didn't  let  on  to  me  about  it.  Wanted  her  two  dollars 
a  week!  If  Jacky's  caught  'em,  I — I'll  see  to  her!" 

"Oh,  he's  all  right,"  Maurice  said;  he  didn't  like  "if— 
although,  if  it  hadn't  been  for  "it"  he  would  probably, 
long  before  this,  have  slipped  down  into  the  mere  com- 
fort of  Lily;  "it"  held  him  prisoner  in  self -contempt; 
"it,"  or  perhaps  the  larger  It?  the  It  which  he  had  seen  first 
in  his  glorious,  passionately  selfish  ecstasy  on  his  wedding 
day ;  then  glimpsed  in  the  awful  orderliness  of  the  universe, — 
the  It  that  held  the  stars  in  their  courses!  Perhaps  the 
liny,  personal  thing,  Joy,  and  the  stupendous,  impersonal 
thing,  Law,  and  the  mysterious,  unseen  thing,  Life,  were 
all  one?  "Call  it  God,"  Maurice  had  said  of  ecstasy,  and 
again  of  order;  he  did  not  call  Jacky's  milky  lips  "God," 
The  little  personality  which  he  had  made  was  not  in  the 
least  God  to  him !  On  the  contrary,  it  was  a  nuisance  and 
a  terror,  and  a  financial  anxiety.  He  shrank  from  the 
thought  of  it,  and  kept  "decent,"  merely  through  disgust 
at  the  child  as  an  entity — an  entity  which  had  driven  him 
into  loathsome  evasions  and  secrecies  which  once  in  a 
while  sharpened  into  little  lies.  But  he  was  faintly  sorry, 
now,  to  see  Lily  look  unhappy  about  the  Thing;  and  he 
even  had  a  friendly  impulse  to  comfort  her:  "Jacky's  all 
right!  But  I'll  send  a  doctor  in,  if  you  want  me  to.  I 
saw  a  doctor's  shingle  out  as  I  came  around  the  corner." 

She  said  she'd  be  awfully  obliged;  and  he,  looking  at  his 
watch,  and  realizing  that  Mrs.  Houghton's  train  was  due 
in  less  than  an  hour,  hurried  off. 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  161 

The  doctor's  bell  was  not  answered  promptly;  then  the 
doctor  detained  him  by  writing  down  the  address,  getting 
it  wrong,  correcting  it,  and  saying:  "Mrs.  Dale?  Oh 
yes;  you  are  Mr.  Dale?" 

' '  No — not  at  all !  Just  a  friend.  I  happened  to  be  calling, 
and  Mrs.  Dale  asked  me  to  stop  and  ask  you  to  come  in." 

Then  he  rushed  off.  On  the  way  to  town,  staring  out  of 
the  window  of  the  car,  he  tingled  all  over  at  Doctor  Nel- 
son's question:  "You  are  Mr.  Dale?"  .  .  .  "Why  the 
devil  did  I  offer  to  get  a  doctor?  I  wish  Lily  would  move 
to  the  ends  of  the  earth ;  or  that  the  brat  would  get  well ; 
or — or  something." 

There  was  a  little  delay  in  reaching  the  station,  and 
when  he  got  there,  it  was  to  find  that  Mrs.  Houghton's 
train  was  in  and  she  and  Edith,  shifting  for  themselves,  had 
presumably  taken  a  hack  to  find  their  way  to  Maurice's 
house.  He  was  mortified,  but  annoyed,  too,  because  it 
involved  giving  Eleanor  some  sort  of  lying  explanation 
for  his  discourtesy.  "I'll  have  to  cook  up  some  kind  of 
yarn!"  he  thought,  disgustedly.  .  .  . 

When  Edith  and  her  mother  had  arrived,  unaccom- 
panied by  Maurice,  Eleanor  was  sharply  worried;  had 
anything  happened  to  him?  Oh,  she  was  afraid  some- 
thing had  happened  to  him!  "Where  do  you  suppose  he 
is?"  she  said,  over  and  over.  "I'm  always  so  afraid  he's 
been  run  over!"  And  when  Maurice,  flushed  and  apolo- 
getic, appeared,  she  was  so  relieved  that  she  was  cross. 
What  on  earth  had  detained  him?  "How  did  you  miss 
them?" 

So  Maurice  immediately  told  half  of  the  truth, — this  be- 
ing easier  for  him  than  an  out-and-out  lie.  He  had  been 
detained  because  he  had  to  go  and  see  a  house  in  Med- 
field.  "Awfully  sorry,  Mrs.  Houghton!" 

Eleanor  said  she  should  have  thought  he  needn't  have 
stayed  long  enough  to  be  late  at  the  station!  Well,  he 
hadn't  stayed  long;  but  the — the  tenant  was  afraid  her 
baby  had  measles  and  she  had  asked  him  to  go  and  get  a 
doctor,  and — " 


z6a  THE  VEHEMENT  .FLAME 

"Of  course!"  Mrs.  Houghton  said;  "don't  give  it  a 
thought,  Maurice.  John  Bennett  met  us — you  knew  he 
was  at  the  Polytechnical? — and  brought  us  here.  But, 
anyhow,  Edith  and  I  were  quite  capable  of  looking  out 
for  ourselves;  weren't  we,  Edith?" 

Edith,  almost  sixteen  now,  long-legged,  silent,  and 
friendly,  said,  "Yes,  mother,"  and  helped  herself  so  lib- 
erally to  butter  that  her  hostess  thought  to  herself, 
"Gracious!" 

However,  assured  that  Maurice  had  not  been  run  over, 
Eleanor  was  really  indifferent  to  Edith's  appetite,  for  the 
sum  Mrs.  Houghton  had  offered  for  the  girl's  board  was 
generous.  So,  proud  of  the  new  house,  and  pleased  with 
sitting  at  the  head  of  her  own  table,  and  hoping  that 
Maurice  would  like  the  pudding,  which,  with  infinite  fuss- 
ing, she  had  made  with  her  own  hands,  she  felt  both  happy 
and  hospitable.  She  told  Edith  to  take  some  more  butter 
(which  she  did !) ;  and  tell  Johnny  to  come  to  dinner  some 
night,  "and  we'll  have  some  music,"  she  added,  kindly. 

"Johnny  doesn't  like  music,"  said  Edith;  "well,  I  don't, 
either.  But  I  guess  he'll  come.  He  likes  food." 

Edith  effaced  herself  a  good  deal  in  the  few  days  that, 
her  mother  stayed  on  in  Mercer  to  launch  her  at  Fern 
Hill;  effaced  herself,  indeed,  so  much  that  Maurice,  full 
of  preoccupations  of  his  own,  was  hardly  aware  of  her 
presence!  .  .  .  He  had  had  a  scared  note  from  Lily: 

Doctor  Nelson  says  he's  awful  sick,  and  I've  got  to  have  a 
nurse.  I  don't  like  to,  because  I  can't  bear  to  have  anybody 
do  for  him  but  me,  and  she  charges  so  much.  Makes  me  tired 
to  see  her  all  fussed  up  in  white  dresses — I  suppose  it's  her  laun- 
dry I'm  paying  for!  That  little  girl  he  caught  it  from  ought 
to  be  sent  to  a  Reformatory.  I'm  afraid  my  new  mealer  '11  go,  if 
she  thinks  there's  anything  catching  in  the  house.  I  hate  to 
ask  you — 

The  scented,  lavender-colored  envelope  was  on  Mau- 
rice's desk  at  the  office  the  morning  after  Mrs.  Houghton. 
and  Edith  arrived.  When  he  had  read  it,  and  torn  it  into 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  163 

minute  scraps,  Maurice  had  something  else  to  think  of 
than  Edith!  He  knew  Lily  wouldn't  want  to  leave  "her" 
baby  to  go  out  and  cash  a  money  order,  and  checks  were 
dangerous;  so  he  must  take  that  trip  to  Medfield  again. 
"Well,"  said  Maurice — pulled  and  jerked  out  to  Maple 
Street  on  the  leash  of  an  ineradicable  sense  of  decency — 
"Well,  the  devil  is  getting  his  money's  worth  out  of  me!" 

He  entered  No.  16  without  turning  the  clanging  bell, 
for  the  door  was  ajar.  Lily  was  in  the  entry,  talking  to 
the  doctor,  who  gave  Mrs.  Dale's  "friend"  a  rather  keen 
look.  "Oh,  Mr.  Curtis,  he's  awful  sick!"  Lily  said;  she 
was  haggard  with  fright. 

Maurice,  swearing  to  himself  for  having  arrived  at  that 
particular  moment,  said,  coldly,  "Too  bad." 

"Oh,  we'll  pull  him  through,"  the  doctor  said,  with  a 
kind  look  at  Lily.  She  caught  his  hand  and  kissed  it, 
and  burst  out  crying.  The  two  men  looked  at  each  other — 
one  amused,  the  other  shrinking  with  disgust  at  his  own 
moral  squalor.  Then  from  the  floor  above  came  a  whim- 
pering cry,  and  Lily,  calling  passionately,  "Yes,  Sweety! 
Maw's  coming!"  flew  upstairs. 

"I'll  look  in  this  evening,"  Doctor  Nelson  said,  and  took 
himself  off,  rubbing  the  back  of  his  hand  on  his  trousers. 
"I  wonder  if  there's  any  funny  business  there?"  he  re- 
flected. But  he  thought  no  more  about  it  until  weeks 
afterward,  when  he  happened,  one  day,  in  the  bank,  to 
stand  before  Maurice,  waiting  his  turn  at  the  teller's 
window.  He  said,  "Hello!"  and  Maurice  said,  "Hello!" 
and  added  that  it  was  a  cold  day.  The  fact  that  Maurice 
said  not  a  word  about  that  recovering  little  patient  in 
Medfield  made  the  doctor's  mind  revert  to  the  possibili- 
ties he  had  recognized  in  Lily's  entry. 

"Yet  he  looks  too  decent  for  that  sort  of  thing,"  the 
doctor  thought;  "well,  it's  a  rum  world."  Then  Maurice 
took  his  turn  at  the  window,  and  Doctor  Nelson  put  his 
notes  in  his  pocket,  and  the  two  men  nodded  to  each, 
other,  and  said,  "By,"  and  went  their  separate  ways. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

EDITH'S  first  winter  in  Mercer  went  pretty  well;  she 
was  not  fussy  about  what  she  had  to  eat;  "I  can 
always  stoke  on  bread  and  butter,"  she  said,  cheerfully; 
and  she  was  patient  with  the  aging  Bingo's  yapping  jeal- 
ousies; "The  smaller  a  dog  is,  the  more  jealous  he  is!" 
she  said,  with  good-humored  contempt;  and  she  didn't 
mind  Eleanor's  speechlessness.  "7  talk!"  Edith  said. 
But  Maurice?  ,  .  .  "I  love  him  next  to  father  and 
mother,"  Edith  thought;  but,  all  the  same,  she  didn't 
know  what  to  make  of  Maurice !  He  had  very  little  to  say 
to  her — which  made  her  feel  annoyingly  young,  and  made 
him  seem  so  old  and  stern  that  sometimes  she  could  hardly 
realize  that  he  was  the  Maurice  of  the  henhouse,  and  the 
camp,  and  the  squabbles.  Instead,  he  was  the  Maurice  of 
that  night  on  the  river,  the  "  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  "  Maurice ! 
Once  in  a  while  she  was  quite  shy  with  him.  "He's 
awfully  handsome,"  she  thought,  and  her  eyes  dreamed. 
"What  a  clod  Johnny  is,  compared  to  him!"  ...  As  for 
Eleanor,  Edith,  being  as  unobservant  as  most  sixteen-year- 
old  girls,  saw  only  the  lovely  dark  eyes  and  the  beautiful 
brow  under  the  ripple  of  soft  black  hair.  Eleanor's  sterile 
silences  did  not  trouble  her,  and  she  never  knew  that  the 
traces  of  tears  meant  a  helpless  consciousness  that  dinner 
had  been  a  failure.  The  fact  was,  she  never  noticed  Elea- 
nor's looks !  She  merely  thought  Maurice's  wife  was  old, 
and  didn't  "get  much  fun  out  of  life — she  just  plays  on 
the  piano!"  Edith  thought.  Pain  of  mind  or  body  was, 
to  Edith — as  probably  it  ought  to  be  to  Youth — unin- 
telligible; so  she  had  no  sympathy.  In  fact,  being  sixteen, 
she  had  still  the  hard  heart  of  a  child. 

It  may  have  been  the  remembrance  of  Sir  Walter 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  165 

Raleigh  that  made  her,  one  night,  burst  into  reminiscent 
questions: 

"Maurice!  Do  you  remember  the  time  that  boat  up- 
set, and  that  girl — all  painted,  you  know — flopped  around 
in  the  water?" 

Maurice  said,  briefly,  why,  yes;  he  believed  he  remem- 
bered. 

"I  remember  that  girl,  too,"  Eleanor  said;  "Maurice 
told  me  about  her." 

"Well,  what  do  you  suppose?"  Edith  said;  "I  saw  her 
to-day." 

Maurice,  pushing  back  his  chair,  got  up  and  went  into 
the  little  room  opening  into  the  dining  room,  which  they 
called  the  library.  At  his  desk,  his  pen  in  his  hand,  his 
jaw  set,  he  sat  listening — listening!  What  in  hell  would 
she  say  next  ?  What  she  said  was  harmless  enough : 

"Yes,  I  saw  her.  I  was  walking  home,  and  on  Maple 
Street  who  should  I  see  going  into  a  house  but  this  woman ! 
She  was  lugging  a  flower  pot,  and  a  baby.  And, — now, 
isn't  this  funny? — she  sort  of  stumbled  at  the  gate,  right 
by  me!  And  I  grabbed  her,  and  kept  the  child  from  falling; 
and  I  said — "  In  the  library  Maurice's  face  was  white — 
"I  said,  'Why,  I  saw  you  once — you're  Miss  Dale.  Your 
boat  upset.'  And  she  said,  'You  have  the  advantage  of 
me/  Of  course  she  isn't  a  lady,  you  know." 

Eleanor  smiled,  and  called  significantly  to  her  hus- 
band, "Edith  says  your  rescued  friend  isn't  a  'lady,' 
Maurice!"  He  didn't  answer,  and  she  added  to  Edith, 
"No;  she  certainly  isn't  a  lady!  Darling,"  she  called 
again;  "do  you  suppose  she's  got  married?" 

To  which  he  answered,  "Where  did  I  put  those  sheets 
of  blotting  paper,  Eleanor?" 

"Oh  yes,  she's  married,"  Edith  said,  scraping  her  plate; 
"she  told  me  her  name  was  Mrs.  Henry  Dale.  She  couldn't 
seem  to  remember  Maurice  giving  her  his  coat,  which  I 
thought  was  rather  funny  in  her,  'cause  Maurice  is  so 
handsome  you'd  think  she'd  remember  him.  And  I  said 
he  was  '  Mr.  Curtis,'  and  she  said  she'd  never  heard  the 


166  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

name.  I  got  to  talking  to  her,"  ("I  bet  you  did,"  Maurice 
thought,  despairingly) ;  ' '  and  she  told  me  that '  Jacky '  had 
had  the  measles,  and  been  awfully  sick,  but  he  was  all 
well  now,  and  she'd  taken  him  into  Mercer  to  get  him 
a  cap."  ("What's  Lily  mean  by  bringing  the  Thing  into 
town!"  Jacky's  father  was  saying  through  set  teeth.) 
"She  was  perfectly  bursting  with  pride  about  him,"  Edith 
went  on;  "said  he  was  'a  reg'lar  rascal'!  Isn't  it  queer 
that  I  should  meet  her,  after  all  these  years?" 

When  Eleanor  went  into  the  library  to  hunt  for  the 
blotting  paper,  she,  too,  commented  on  the  queerness  of 
Edith's  stumbling  on  the  lady  who  wasn't  a  lady.  "How 
small  the  world  is!"  said  Eleanor.  "Why,  Maurice,  here's 
the  paper!  Right  before  you!" 

"Oh,"  said  Maurice,  "yes;  thank  you."  He  was  saying 
to  himself,  "I  might  have  known  this  kind  of  thing  would 
happen!"  He  was  consumed  with  anxiety  to  ask  Edith 
some  questions,  but  of  course  he  had  to  be  silent.  To  show 
even  the  slightest  interest  was  impossible — and  Edith  vol- 
unteered no  further  information,  for  that  night  Eleanor 
took  occasion  to  intimate  to  her  that  "Mrs.  Dale"  must 
not  be  referred  to.  "You  can't  speak  of  that  kind  of  per- 
son, you  know." 

"Why  not?"  Edith  said. 

' '  Well ,  she  isn't — nice.  She  wasn't  married.  And  Edith, 
it  really  isn't  good  taste  to  tell  a  man,  right  to  his  face, 
that  he's  handsome !  I  don't  think  any  man  likes  flattery. ' ' 

"You  mean  because  I  said  Maurice  was  handsome?  I 
didn't  say  it  to  his  face — he  was  in  the  library.  And  it 
isn't  flattery  to  tell  the  truth.  He  is!  As  for  Mrs.  Dale, 
she  is  married ;  this  little  Jacky  was  her  baby !  She  said  so. 
He  had  the  bluest  eyes!  I  never  saw  such  blue  eyes — 
except  Maurice's.  'Course  she's  not  a  lady;  but  I  don't 
see  what  right  you  have  to  say  she  isn't  nice." 

Eleanor,  laughing,  threw  up  despairing  hands;  "Edith, 
don't  you  know  anything?" 

"I  know  everything,"  Edith  said,  affronted;  "I'm  six- 
teen. Of  course  I  know  what  you  mean;  but  Mrs.  Dale 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  167 

isn't — that.  And,"  Edith  ended,  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment,  "and  I'm  going  to  see  her  sometime!"  The 
under  dog  always  appealed  to  Edith  Houghton,  and  when 
Eleanor  left  her,  appalled  by  her  failure  to  instill  proprieties 
into  her,  Edith  was  distinctly  hot.  "I'm  not  going  to  see 
her!"  she  told  herself.  "I  wouldn't  think  of  such  a  thing. 
But  I  won't  listen  to  Eleanor  abusing  her." 

As  for  Eleanor,  she  confided  her  alarm  to  Maurice. 
"She  mustn't  go  to  see  that  woman!" 

His  instant  horrified  agreement  was  a  satisfaction  to 
her:  "Of  course  not!" 

"She  won't  listen  to  me,"  Eleanor  complained;  "you'll 
have  to  tell  her  she  mustn't." 

"I  will,"  he  said,  grimly. 

And  the  very  next  day  he  did.  He  happened  (as  it 
seemed)  to  start  for  his  office  just  as  Edith  started  for 
school,  so  they  walked  along  together. 

"Edith,"  he  said,  the  moment  they  were  clear  of  his 
own  doorway  and  Eleanor's  ears;  "that  Mrs.  Dale;  I'd 
keep  away  from  her,  if  I  were  you." 

"Goodness!"  said  Edith;  "did  you  suppose  I  was  going 
to  fall  into  her  arms?  Why  should  I  have  anything  to  do 
with  her?" 

"Eleanor  said  you  said — " 

"Oh,  I  just  said  that  because  Eleanor  was  down  on  her, 
and  that  made  me  mad.  I  couldn't  go  and  see  her,  if  I 
was  dying  to — 'cause  I  don't  know  where  she  lives — unless 
it  was  that  house  she  was  going  into?  Do  you  know, 
Maurice?" 

"Great  Scott!    How  should  I  know  where  she  lives?" 

"'Course  not,"  said  Edith. 

But  it  was  many  days  before  Maurice's  alarm  quieted 
down  sufficiently  to  let  him  drift  back  into  the  furtive  se- 
curity of  knowing  that  neither  Edith  nor  Eleanor  could,  by 
any  possibility,  get  on  Lily's  track.  "And,  besides,  Lily's 
too  good  a  sport  to  give  anything  away.  Pretty  neat  in  her 
to  'forget'  that  coat!  But  she  ought  to  be  careful  not  to 
forget  her  husband's  name  I — it  seems  to  be  Henry,  now." 


CHAPTER  XV 

A  MOODY  Maurice,  who  puzzled  her,  and  a  faultfind- 
ing Eleanor,  whom  she  was  too  generous  to  under- 
stand, drove  the  sixteen-year-old  Edith  into  a  real  appre* 
ciation  of  Johnny  Bennett.  With  him,  she  was  still  in  tho 
stage  of  unsentimental  frankness  that  pierced  ruthlessly  to 
what  she  conceived  to  be  the  realities;  and  because  she 
was  as  unselfconscious  as  a  tree,  she  was  entirely  indiffer- 
ent to  the  fact  that  Johnny  was  a  boy  and  she  was  a  girl. 
Johnny,  however,  nearsighted  and  in  enormous  shell* 
rimmed  spectacles,  and  still  inarticulate,  was  quite  aware 
of  it;  more  definitely  so  every  week, — for  he  saw  her  on 
Saturdays  and  Sundays.  "And  it's  the  greatest  possible 
relief  to  talk  to  you!"  Edith  told  him. 

Johnny  accepted  the  tribute  as  his  due.  They  had  been 
coasting,  and  now,  on  the  hilltop,  were  sitting  on  their 
sleds,  resting.  "Gosh!  it's  hot!"  Johnny  said:  he  had 
taken  off  his  red  sweater  and  tied  its  sleeves  around  his 
neck;  "zero?  You  try  pulling  both  those  sleds  up  here, 
and  you'll  think  it's  the  Fourth  of  July,"  Johnny  said, 
adjusting  his  spectacles  with  a  mittened  hand.  He  fre- 
quently reverted  to  the  grumpy  stage — yet  now,  looking 
at  Edith,  grumpiness  vanished.  She  was  breathless  from 
the  long  climb,  and  her  white  teeth  showed  between  her 
parted,  panting  lips:  her  cheeks  were  burning  with  frosty 
pink.  Johnny  looked,  and  looked  away,  and  sighed. 

"Johnny,"  Edith  said,  "why  do  you  suppose  Eleanor 
gives  me  so  many  call-downs?  'Course  I  hate  music;  and 
once  I  said  she  was  always  pounding  on  the  piano — and  she 
didn't  seem  to  like  it!"  Edith  was  genuinely  puzzled. 
"I  can't  understand  Eleanor,"  she  said;  "she  makes  me 
tired." 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  169 

"I  should  think  she'd  make  Maurice  tired!"  Johnny 
said,  and  added:  "That's  the  worst  of  getting  married. 
I  shall  never  marry." 

"When  I  was  a  child,"  Edith  said,  "I  always  said  that 
when  I  grew  up  I  was  going  to  marry  Maurice,  because 
he  was  just  like  Sir  Walter  Raleigh.  Wasn't  that  a  joke? " 

Johnny  saw  nothing  amusing  in  such  foolishness;  he 
Raid  that  Maurice  was  old  enough  to  be  her  father!  As 
for  himself,  he  felt,  he  said,  that  marriage  was  a  mistake. 
"Women  hamper  a  man  dreadfully.  Still — I  may  marry," 
Johnny  conceded;  "but  it  will  be  somebody  very  young, 
so  I  can  train  her  mind.  I  want  a  woman  (if  I  decide  to 
marry)  to  be  just  the  kind  I  want.  Otherwise,  you  get 
hung  up  with  Eleanors." 

Edith  lifted  her  chin.  "  Well,  I  like  that!  Why  shouldn't 
she  train  your  mind  ? ' ' 

"Because,"  Johnny  said,  firmly,  "the  man's  mind  is  the 
stronger." 

Edith  screamed  with  laughter,  and  threw  a  handful  of 
snow  in  his  neck.  "B-r-r-r!"  she  said;  "it's  getting  cold! 
I'll  knock  the  spots  out  of  you  on  belly  bumps!"  She  got 
on  her  feet,  shook  the  snow  from  the  edge  of  her  skirt, 
flung  herself  face  down  on  her  sled,  and  shot  like  a  blue 
comet  over  the  icy  slope.  Johnny  sped  after  her,  his  big 
sled  taking  flying  leaps  over  the  kiss-me-quicks.  They 
reached  the  bottom  of  the  hill  almost  together,  and 
Johnny,  looking  at  her  standing  there,  breathless  and  rosy, 
with  shining  eyes  which  were  as  impersonal  as  stars,  said 
to  himself,  with  emotion: 

" She's  got  sense — for  a  girl."  His  heart  was  pounding  in 
his  broad  chest,  but  he  couldn't  think  of  a  thing  to  say. 
He  was  still  dumb  when  she  said  good-by  to  him  at 
Maurice's  door. 

"Why  don't  you  come  to  dinner  next  Saturday?"  she 
said,  carelessly;  "Maurice  will  be  away  all  week  on  busi- 
ness; but  he'll  be  back  Saturday." 

Johnny  mumbled  something  to  the  effect  that  he  could 
survive,  even  if  Maurice  wasn't  back. 


i7o  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

"I  couldn't,"  Edith  said.  "I  should  simply  die,  in  this 
house,  if  it  wasn't  for  Maurice!" 

As,  whistling,  she  ran  upstairs,  Edith  thought  to  herself 
that  Johnny  was  a  lamb!  "But,  compared  to  Maurice, 
he's  awfully  uninteresting."  Edith,  openly  and  audibly, 
compared  every  male  creature  to  Maurice,  and  none  of 
them  ever  measured  up  to  him!  His  very  moodiness 
had  its  charm;  when  he  sat  down  at  the  piano  after 
dinner  and  scowled  over  some  new  music,  or  when  he 
lounged  in  his  big  chair  and  smoked,  his  face  absorbed 
to  the  point  of  sternness,  Edith,  loving  him  "next  to 
father  and  mother,"  watched  him,  and  wondered  what 
he  was  thinking  about?  Sometimes  he  came  out  of  his 
abstraction  and  teased  her,  and  then  she  sparkled  into 
gay  impertinences;  sometimes  he  asked  her  what  she 
thought  of  this  or  that  phrasing,  "...  though  you  are 
a  barbarian,  Skeezics,  about  music";  sometimes  he  would 
pull  a  book  from  the  shelf  over  his  desk  and  read  a 
poem  to  her;  and  he  was  really  interested  in  her  opinion, 
— ardently  appreciative  if  he  liked  the  poem;  if  he  didn't, 
it  was  "the  limit" 

Maurice  was  at  home  that  Saturday  night  for  which 
Edith  had  thrown  the  careless  invitation  to  Johnny;  and 
Mrs.  Newbolt  also  dropped  in  to  dinner.  It  was  not  a 
pleasant  dinner.  Eleanor  sat  in  one  of  her  empty  silences; 
saw  Maurice  frown  at  an  overdone  leg  of  lamb ;  heard  her 
aunt's  stream  of  comments  on  her  housekeeping;  listened 
to  Edith's  teasing  chatter  to  Johnny; — "What  can  Maurice 
see  in  her!"  She  thought.  Before  dinner  was  over,  she 
excused  herself;  she  had  a  headache,  she  said.  "You 
won't  mind,  Auntie,  will  you?" 

Mrs.  Newbolt  said,  heartily,  "Not  a  bit!  My  dear 
mother  used  to — " 

Eleanor,  picking  up  little  Bingo,  went  with  lagging  step 
out  of  the  room. 

"Children,"  said  Mrs.  Newbolt,  "why  don't  you  make 
taffy  this  evening?" 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  171 

"That's  sense,"  said  Edith;  "let's!  It's  Mary's  night 
out.  Sorry  poor  old  Eleanor  isn't  up  to  it." 

Maurice  frowned;  ''Look  here,  Edith,' that  isn't — 
respectful." 

Edith  looked  so  blankly  astonished  that  Mrs.  Newbolt 
defended  her:  "But  Eleanor  does  look  old!  And  she'll 
lose  her  figger  if  she  isn't  careful !  My  dear  grandmother — 
used  to  say,  "Girls,  I'd  rather  have  you  lose  your  vir — " 

"Don't  raise  Cain  in  the  kitchen,  you  two,"  Maurice 
said,  hastily;  "Eleanor  hates  noise." 

Edith,  subdued  by  his  rebuke,  said  she  wouldn't  raise 
Cain;  and,  indeed,  she  and  Johnny  were  preternaturally 
quiet  until  things  had  been  cleared  away  and  the  taffy 
could  be  started.  When  it  was  on  the  stove,  there  was  at 
least  ten  minutes  of  whispering  while  they  watched  the 
black  molasses  shimmer  into  the  first  yellow  rings.  Then 
Johnny,  in  a  low  voice,  talked  for  a  good  while  of  some- 
thing he  called  "Philosophy" — which  seemed  to  consist 
in  a  profound  disbelief  in  everything.  "Take  religion," 
said  Johnny.  "I'd  like  to  discuss  it  with  you ;  I  think  you 
have  a  very  good  mind — for  a  woman.  Religion  is  an  illus- 
tration of  what  I  mean.  It's  a  delusion.  A  complete  delu- 
sion. I  have  ceased  to  believe  in  anything." 

"Oh,  Johnny,  how  awful!"  said  Edith,  stirring  the 
seething  sweetness;  "Johnny,  be  a  lamb,  and  get  me  a 
tumbler  of  cold  water,  will  you,  to  try  this  stuff?" 

Johnny  brought  the  water  ("Oh,  how  young  she  is!" 
he  thought),  and  Edith  poured  a  trickle  of  taffy  into  it. 

"Is  it  done?"  Edith  said,  and  held  out  the  brittle  string 
of  candy ;  he  bit  at  it,  and  said  he  guessed  so.  Then  they 
poured  the  foamy  stuff  into  a  pan,  and  put  it  in  the 
refrigerator.  "We'll  wait  till  it  gets  stiff,"  said  Edith. 

"I  think,"  said  Johnny,  in  a  low  voice,  "your  hair  is 
handsomer  than  most  women's.  I'm  particular  about  a 
woman's  hair." 

Edith,  sitting  on  the  edge  of  the  table,  displaying  very 
pretty  ankles,  put  an  appraising  hand  over  the  brown 

braids  that  were  wound  around  her  head  in  a  sort  of 
12 


i7a  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

fillet.  "Are  you?"  she  said,  and  began  to  yawn — but 
stopped  short,  her  mouth  still  open,  for  Johnny  Bennett 
was  looking  at  herl  "Let's  go  into  the  library,"  she  said, 
hurriedly. 

"I  like  it  out  here,"  Johnny  objected. 

But  as  he  spoke  Maurice  lounged  into  the  kitchen. 
"Stiff?  "he  said. 

"No;  won't  be  for  ages,"  Edith  said — and  instantly  the 
desire  to  fly  to  the  library  ceased,  especially  as  Airs. 
Newbolt  came  trundling  in.  With  Maurice  astride  one  of 
the  wooden  chairs,  his  blue  eyes  droll  and  teasing,  and 
Mrs.  Newbolt  enthroned  in  adipose  good  nature  close  to 
the  stove,  Edith  was  perfectly  willing  to  stay  in  the 
kitchen ! 

"I  say!"  Maurice  said.   "Let's  pull  the  stuff!" 

Johnny  looked  cross.  "What,"  he  asked  himself,  "are 
Maurice  and  Mrs.  Newbolt  butting  in  for?"  Then  he 
softened,  for  Maurice  was  teasing  Edith,  and  Mrs.  New- 
bolt  was  tasting  the  candy,  and  the  next  minute  all  was 
in  delightful  uproar  of  stickiness  and  excitement,  and 
Johnny,  exploding  into  wild  cackles  of  laughter,  felt  quite 
young  for  the  next  hour. 

Eleanor,  upstairs,  with  Bingo's  little  silken  head  on  her 
breast,  did  not  feel  young ;  she  heard  the  noise,  and  smelled 
the  boiling  molasses,  and  knew  that  Mary  would  be  cross 
when  she  came  home  and  found  the  kitchen  in  a  mess. 
"How  can  Maurice  stand  such  childishness!"  She  lay 
there  with  a  cologne-soaked  handkerchief  on  her  forehead, 
and  sighed  with  pain.  "Why  doesn't  he  stop  them?"  she 
thought.  She  heard  his  shout  of  laughter,  and  Edith's 
screaming  giggle,  and  moved  her  head  to  find  a  cool  place 
on  the  pillow.  "She's  too  old  to  romp  with  him."  Sud- 
denly she  sat  up,  tense  and  listening;  he  was  enjoying 
himself — and  she  was  suffering!  "If  he  had  a  headache, 
I  would  sit  with  him;  I  wouldn't  leave  him  alone!"  But 
she  was  sick  in  bed, — and  he  was  having  a  good  time — 
with  Edith.  Her  resentment  was  not  exactly  jealousy; 
it  was  fear;  the  same  fear  she  had  felt  when  Maurice 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  173 

had  told  her  how  Edith  had  rushed  into  his  room  the 
night  of  the  great  storm,  the  fear  of  Youth!  She  moved 
Bingo  gently,  stroking  him  until  he  seemed  to  be  asleep; 
then  sat  up,  and  put  her  feet  on  the  floor.  The  folded  hand- 
kerchief slipped  from  her  forehead,  and  she  pressed  her 
hands  against  her  temples.  "I'm  going  downstairs,"  she 
said  to  herself;  "I  won't  be  left  out!"  She  felt  a  sick 
qualm  as  she  got  on  to  her  feet,  and  went  over  to  look  at 
herself  in  the  mirror  .  .  .  her  face  was  pale,  and  her  hair, 
wet  with  cologne,  was  pasted  down  in  straggling  locks  on 
her  forehead;  she  tried  to  smooth  it.  "Oh,  I  look  old 
enough  to  be — his  aunt,"  she  said,  hopelessly.  When  she 
opened  her  door  she  heard  a  little  thud  behind  her;  it  was 
Bingo,  scrambling  off  the  bed  to  follow  her;  as  she  went 
downstairs,  unsteadily,  and  clinging  to  the  banisters,  he 
stepped  on  her  skirt,  so  she  had  to  stoop  and  pick  him  up. 
At  the  closed  kitchen  door  she  paused  for  a  moment,  lean- 
ing against  the  wall;  her  head  swam.  Bingo,  held  in  one 
trembling  arm,  put  out  his  little  pink  tongue  and  licked 
her  cheek.  "I  won't  be  left  out,"  she  said  again.  Just  as 
her  hand  touched  the  knob  there  was  an  outburst  of  joyous 
yells,  and  a  whack!  as  a  lump  of  taffy,  flung  by  one  of 
the  roisterers,  hit  the  resounding  panel  of  the  door — then 
Mrs.  Newbolt's  fat  chuckle,  and  Johnny's  voice  vociferat- 
ing that  Edith  was  the  limit,  and  Maurice — "Edith,  if  you 
put  that  stuff  in  my  hair,  I'll  skin  you  alive!" 

"Boil  her  in  oil!"  yelled  Johnny. 

Eleanor  turned  around  and  crept  back  to  the  stairs; 
she  caught  at  the  newel  post,  and  stood,  gasping;  then, 
somehow,  she  climbed  up  to  her  room.  There,  lifting 
Bingo  into  his  basket,  she  sank  on  her  bed,  groping  blindly 
for  the  damp  handkerchief  to  put  across  her  forehead 
"Mary  will  give  notice,"  she  said.  After  a  while,  as  the 
throbbing  grew  less  acute,  she  said,  "He's  their  age." 
Bingo,  crawling  out  of  his  basket,  scrabbled  up  on  to  the 
bed;  she  felt  his  little  loving  cold  nose  against  her  face. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

WHAT  a  kid  Johnny  Bennett  is!"  Maurice  told 
Eleanor.  He  was  detailing  to  her,  while  he  was 
scrubbing  the  stickiness  of  the  kitchen  festivities  off  his 
hands,  what  had  happened  downstairs.  "But  do  you 
know,  I  believe  he's  soft  on  Edith!  How  old  is  he?" 

"He's  nearly  nineteen.    Children,  both  of  them." 

"Nineteen?"  Maurice  said,  astounded.  Nineteen! 
Johnny?  "Why,  7  was  nineteen,  when — "  He  paused. 
She  was  silent.  Suddenly  Maurice  felt  pity.  He  had  run 
the  gamut  of  many  emotions  in  the  last  four  years — love, 
and  fright,  and  repentance,  and  agonies  of  shame,  and 
sometimes  anger;  but  he  had  never  touched  pity.  It 
stabbed  him  now,  and  its  dagger  blade  was  sawtoothed 
with  remorse.  He  looked  at  his  wife,  lying  there  with 
closed  eyes,  her  pillow  damp  where  the  wet  handkerchief 
had  slipped  from  her  temples,  and  her  beautiful  mouth 
sagging  with  pain.  "Oh,  I  must  be  nice  to  her,  poor 
thing!"  he  thought.  Aloud  he  said,  "Poor  Eleanor!" 

Instantly  her  dark  eyes  opened  in  startled  joy;  his 
tenderness  lifted  her  into  indifference  to  that  throbbing 
in  her  temples.  "I  don't  mind  anything,"  she  said,  "if 
you  love  me." 

"Can't  I  do' something  for  your  head?" 

"Just  kiss  me,  darling,"  she  said. 

He  kissed  her,  for  he  was  sorry  for  her.  But  he  was 
thinking  of  himself.  "I  was  Johnny  Bennett's  age,  when 
.  .  .  And  I  wanted  to  kiss  her !  My  God!  I  may  have  to 
keep  up  this  kissing  business  for — for  forty  years!"  And 
whenever  he  was  kissing  her,  he  would  have  to  think  how 
he  was  deceiving  her ;  he  would  have  to  think  of  Lily.  Yes; 
he  had  been  a  "kid,"  like  Johnny!  How  could  she  have 
done  it!  Pity  sharpened  into. anger:  How  could  she 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  i7S 

have  taken  advantage  of  a  boy?  Well;  he  had  had  his 
fling.  To  be  sure,  he  was  paying  for  it  now,  not  only  in 
anxiety  about  money,  but  in  shame,  and  furtiveness,  and 
the  corroding  consciousness  of  being  a  liar,  and  in  the  com- 
plete shipwreck  of  every  purpose  and  ambition  that  a 
young  man  ought  to  have.  "And  that  day,  in  the  field,  I 
called  it  love!"  He  would  have  been  amused  at  the 
cynical  memory,  if  he  had  not  been  so  bitter.  "Love? 
Rot!  Still,  I  ought  to  be  kinder  to  her; — but  I  can't  bear 
to  look  at  her.  She's  an  old  woman." 

Eleanor  put  out  her  hot,  trembling  hand  and  groped  for 
his.  "  Good  night,  darling,"  she  said ;  "my  head's  better." 

"So  glad,"  he  said. 

The  next  morning,  as  Eleanor,  rather  white  and  shaky, 
was  dressing,  she  said,  "Edith  doesn't  seem  to  realize  that 
she  is  too  old  to  be  so  free  and  easy  with  Johnny  Bennett 
— and  you." 

"She's  getting  mighty  good  looking,"  Maurice  said. 

"She  has  too  much  color,"  Eleanor  said,  quickly. 

Maurice  was  right.  During  Edith's  second  winter  in 
Mercer  she  grew  prettier  all  the  time;  poor,  speechless 
Johnny,  looking  at  her  through  his  spectacles,  was  quite 
miserable.  He  told  some  of  his  intimate  friends  that  life 
was  a  bad  joke. 

"I  shall  never  marry;  just  do  some  big  work,  and  then 
get  out.  There  is  nothing  really  worth  while.  Mere  looks 
in  a  woman  don't  attract  me,"  Johnny  said. 

But  that  Maurice  found  "looks"  attractive,  began  to 
be  obvious  to  Eleanor,  who,  night  after  night,  at  the  dinner 
table,  watched  the  smiling,  shining,  careless  thing — Youth ! 
— sitting  there  on  Maurice's  right,  and  felt  herself  wither- 
ing in  the  dividing  years.  As  a  result,  the  annoyance  which  j 
when  Edith  was  a  child,  she  had  felt  at  her  childishness,' 
began  to  harden  into  irritation  at  her  womanliness. «." I 
wish  I  could  get  her  out  of  the  house!"  she  used  to  think,' 
helplessly/ 

She  felt  this  irritation  especially  when  they  all  went,  one 
night,  to  dine  with  Tom  Morton,  who  had  just  married 


x76  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

and 'gone  to  housekeeping.  It  was  a  somewhat  looked- 
forward-to  event,  although  Eleanor  thought  Edith  too 
young  to  dine  out,  and  also  the  shabbiness  of  Maurice's 
evening  clothes  was  on  her  mind.  "Do  get  a  new  dress 
suit!"  she  urged;  and  he  gave  the  stereotyped  answer: 
"Can't  afford  it." 

They  started  for  the  Mortons'  gayly  enough;  but 
Maurice's  gayety  went  out  like  a  candle  in  the  wind  when, 
as  he  followed  Eleanor  and  Edith  into  the  parlor,  he 
saw,  and  after  a  puzzled  moment  recognized,  the  third 
man  in  the  Morton  dinner  of  six — the  man  who  had 
stood  in  Lily's  little  hall  and  said  that  the  child  would 
*'pull  through."  .  .  .  The  spiritual  squalor  of  that  scene 
flashed  back  in  sharp  visualization:  the  doctor;  Lily,  her 
amber  eyes  overflowing  with  tears,  kissing  his  hand; 
Jacky's  fretful  cry  from  upstairs.  .  .  .  Here  he  was !  that 
same  kindly  medical  man,  "getting  off  some  guff  to  Mrs. 
Morton,"  Maurice  told  himself,  in  agonized  uncertainty 
as  to  what  he  had  better  do.  Should  he  recognize  him? 
Or  pretend  not  to  know  him?  It  galloped  through  his 
mind  that  if  he  did  "know"  him,  Eleanor  would  ask 
questions.  Oh,  he  knew  Eleanor's  questions!  But  if  he 
didn't  "know"  him,  Doctor  Nelson  would  know  that 
questions  might  be  asked.  The  instant's  hesitation 
between  the  two  risks  was  decided  by  Doctor  Nelson,  j 
He  put  out  his  hand  and  said,  "Oh,  how  are  you?"  So 
Maurice  said,  "Oh,  how  are  you?"  as  carelessly  as  any- 
body else. 

Eleanor,  when  the  doctor  was  introduced,  said,  a  little 
surprised,  "You  know  my  husband?" 

"I  think  I've  met  Mr.  Curtis  somewhere,"  Doctor 
[Nelson  said,  vaguely. 

"He  knows  so  many  people  I  don't,"  she  thought,  but 
she  said  nothing.  No  one  noticed  her  silence — or  Mau- 
rice's, either!  The  doctor,  and  Morton,  and  the  handsome 
bride,  were  listening  to  Edith,  amused,  apparently,  at  her 
crudity  and  ignorance. 

"Oh  yes,"  Eleanor  heard  her  say;  ."Eleanor's  voice  is 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  177 

perfectly  fine,  father  says.  I'm  not  musical.  Father  says 
I  don't  know  the  difference  between  'Yankee  Doodle'  and 
'Old  Hundred.'  Father  say — "  and  so  OIL 

"She's  tiresome!"  Eleanor  told  herself.  Later,  as  she 
sat  at  the  little  dinner  table,  all  gay  with  flowers  and  the 
bride's  new  candlesticks  and  glittering  bonbon  dishes 
("Hetty's  showing  off  our  loot,"  the  bridegroom  said, 
proudly),  Eleanor,  looking  on,  and  straining  sometimes  to 
be  silly  like  the  rest  of  them,  said  to  herself,  bleakly,  that 
the  doctor,  who  looked  fifty,  had  been  asked  on  her 
account.  When  he  began  to  talk  to  her  it  was  all  she  could 
do  to  say, ' '  Really  ? "  or,  "  Of  course ! "  at  the  proper  places ; 
she  was  absorbed  in  watching  Edith — the  vivid  face,  the 
broad  smile,  the  voice  so  full  of  preposterous  certainties! 
"I  look  old,"  she  thought;  and  indeed  she  did — most  un- 
necessarily !  for  she  was  only  forty-four.  Her  throat  sud- 
denly ached  with  unshed  tears  of  longing  to  be  young.  Yet 
if  she  had  not  been  so  bitter  she  would  have  seen  that 
Maurice  looked  almost  as  old  as  she  did !  And  no  wonder. 
His  consternation  at  the  sight  of  Doctor  Nelson  had  been 
panic !  He  could  hardly  eat.  Natural!  y ,  the  preoccupation 
of  the  two  Curtises  threw  the  burden  of  talk  upon  the 
others.  Doctor  Nelson  gave  himself  up  to  his  hostess,  and 
Morton  found  Edith's  ardors,  upon  every  subject  under 
heaven,  most  diverting ;  he  teased  her  and  baited  her,  and 
her  eyes  grew  more  shining,  and  her  cheeks  pinker,  and  her 
gayety  more  contagious  with  every  repartee  she  flung  back 
at  him.  Mrs.  Morton  struggled  heroically  with  Maurice's 
heaviness,  but  she  told  her  husband  afterward,  that  Mr. 
Curtis  was  nearly  as  dull  as  his  wife!  "I  couldn't  make 
him  talk!"  she  said.  After  a  while  she  gave  up  trying  to 
make  him  talk,  and  listened  to  Edith's  story  of  what  hap^ 
pened  when  she  was  a  little  girl  and  came  to  Mercer  witK 
her  father : 

"A  terrible  shipwreck!"  Edith  said;  "I  remember  it 
because  of  Maurice's  gallantry  in  giving  the  flopping  girl 
his  coat — he  was  a  perfect  Sir  Walter  Raleigh !  Remember, 
Maurice?" 


i78  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

Maurice  said,  briefly,  that  he  "remembered";  "if  she 
says  Dale,  I'm  dished,"  he  thought;  aloud,  he  said  that 
the  river  was  growing  impossible  for  boating;  which 
caused  them  to  drop  the  subject  of  the  flopping  girl,  and 
talk  about  Mercer's  increasing  dinginess,  at  which  Edith 
said,  eagerly: 

"You  ought  to  see  our  mountains — no  smoke  there!" 

Then,  of  course,  came  tales  of  camping,  and,  most  ani- 
matedly, the  story  of  Eleanor's  wonderful  rescue  of 
Maurice. 

"She  pulled  that  great  big  Maurice  all  the  way  down 
to  Doctor  Bennett's!  And  we  were  all  so  proud  of  her!" 

Eleanor  protested:  "It  was  nothing  at  all."  Maurice, 
in  his  own  mind,  was  saying,  "I  wish  she'd  left  me  there! " 

When  the  ladies  left  the  gentlemen  to  their  cigars, 
Edith  was  bubbling  over  with  anxiety  to  confide  to  Mrs. 
Morton  the  joke  about  the  "lady's  cheeks  coming  off," 
and  that  gave  the  married  women  the  chance  to  express 
melancholy  convictions  as  to  the  wickedness  of  the  world, 
to  which  Edith  listened  with  much  interest. 

"I  think  my  painted  lady  lives  in  Medfield,"  she  said. 

"Why,  how  do  you  know?"  Eleanor  exclaimed,  sur- 
prised. 

"Why,  don't  you  remember  the  time  I  saw  her,  with  that 
blue-eyed  baby?  She  was  just  going  into  a  house  on  Maple 
Street." 

It  was  at  this  moment  that  the  gentlemen  entered, 
so  there  was  no  further  talk  of  painted  ladies;  and,  be- 
sides, Maurice  was  alert  to  catch  Eleanor's  eye,  and  go 
home!  "Edith  is  capable  of  saying  anything!"  he  was 
thinking,  desperately. 

However,  Edith  said  nothing  alarming,  and  Maurice 
was  able  to  get  her  safely  away  from  the  powder  magazine 
in  the  shape  of  the  amiable  doctor,  who,  following  them  a 
few  minutes  later,  was  saying  to  himself:  "How  scared  he 
was!  Yet  he  looks  like  a  good  fellow  at  bottom.  A  rum 
world — a  rum  world!" 

The  "good  fellow"  hurried  his  womenkind  down  the 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  '179 

street  in  angry  preoccupation.  As  soon  as  he  and  Eleanor 
were  alone,  he  said,  "When  does  Edith  graduate?" 

"She  has  two  years  more." 

"Oh,  Lord!"  Maurice  said,  despairingly;  "has  she  got 
to  be  around  for  two  years  ? "  Eleanor's  face  lightened,  but 
Maurice  was  instantly  repentant.  "I  ought  to  be  ashamed 
of  myself  for  saying  that!  Edith's  fine;  and  she  has 
brains;  but — " 

"She  monopolized  the  conversation  to-night,"  Eleanor 
said;  "Maurice,  it  is  very  improper  for  her  to  keep  talking 
all  the  time  about  that  horrid  woman!" 

The  sharpness  of  his  agreement  made  her  look  at  him 
in  surprise.  "She  mustn't  talk  about  Mrs.  Dale!"  he  said, 
angrily. 

"Dale?    Is  that  her  name?"  said  Eleanor. 

"I  don't  know.  I  think  so;  didn't  Edith  call  her  that? 
Well,  anyway,  she  mustn't  keep  talking  about  her!" 

His  irritation  was  so  marked,  that  Eleanor's  heart 
warmed;  but  she  said,  wearily,  "I'll  be  glad  myself  when 
she  graduates." 


CHAPTER  XVII 

EDITH,  reflecting  upon  her  first  dinner  party,  wished 
Johnny  had  seen  her,  all  dressed  up.  Then  she  pon- 
dered the  possibilities  of  her  allowance:  If  she  was  "going 
out,"  oughtn't  she  to  have  a  real  evening  dress?  But  this 
daring  thought  faded  very  soon,  for  there  didn't  seem  to 
be  any  dinner  parties  ahead.  Mrs.  Newbolt's  supper 
table  was,  as  Maurice  said,  sarcastically,  the  extent  of  the 
"Curtises'  social  whirl" — a  fact  which  did  not  trouble  him 
in  the  least !  He  had  his  own  social  whirl.  He  had  made  a 
man-circle  for  himself;  some  of  the  fellows  in  the  office 
were  his  sort,  he  told  Edith,  and  it  was  evident  that  their 
bachelor  habits  appealed  to  him,  for  he  dined  out  fre- 
quently; and  when  he  did,  he  was  careful  not  to  tell  Elea- 
nor where  he  was  going,  because  once  or  twice,  when  he 
had  told  her,  she  had  called  up  the  club  or  house  on  the 
telephone  about  midnight  to  inquire  if  "Mr.  Curtis  had 
started  home?"  .  .  .  "I  was  worried  about  you,  it  was  so 
late,"  she  defended  herself  against  his  irritated  mortifi- 
cation. He  used  to  report  these  stag  parties  to  Edith, 
telling  her  some  of  the  stories  he  had  heard;  it  didn't 
occur  to  him  to  tell  any  stories  to  Eleanor,  because,  as 
Henry  Houghton  had  once  said,  Maurice  and  his  wife 
didn't  "have  the  same  taste  in  jokes."  When  Edith 
chuckled  over  this  or  that  witticism  (or  frowned  at  any 
opinion  contrary  to  Maurice's  opinion!)  Eleanor  sat  in 
unsmiling  silence.  It  was  about  this  time  Maurice  fell 
into  the  way  of  saying  "we"  to  Edith:  "We"  will  have 
tea  in  the  garden;  "we"  will  put  in  a  lot  of  bulbs  on  each 
side  of  the  brick  path;  "we"  will  go  down  to  the  square 
and  hear  the  election  returns.  Occasionally  he  remembered. 
to  say,  "Why  don't  you  come  along,  Eleanor?" 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  181 

"No,  thank  you,"  she  said;  and  sometimes,  to  herself, 
she  added,  "He  keeps  me  out."  The  jealous  woman 
always  says  this,  never  realizing  the  deeper  truth,  which 
is  that  she  keeps  herself  out !  Maurice  did  not  notice  how, 
all  that  winter,  Eleanor  was  keeping  herself  out.  She  was 
steadily  retreating  into  some  inner  solitude  of  her  own. 
No  one  noticed  it,  except  Mrs.  O'Brien — and  perhaps  fat, 
elderly,  snarling  Bingo,  who  must  sometimes,  when  his 
small  pink  tongue  lapped  her  cheek,  have  tasted  tears. 
By  another  year,  Eleanor's  mind  had  so  utterly  diverged 
from  Maurice's  that  not  even  his  remorse  (which  he  had 
grown  used  to,  as  one  grows  used  to  some  encysted  thing) 
could  achieve  for  them  any  unity  of  living.  She  bored 
him,  and  he  hurt  her;  she  loved  him  and  tried  to  please 
him;  he  didn't  love  her,  but  tried  to  be  polite;  he  was 
not  often  angry  with  her,  he  wasn't  fond  enough  of  her 
to  be  angry !  So,  forgetful  of  that  security  of  the  Stars — 
Truth ! — to  which  he  had  once  aspired,  he  grew  dully  used 
to  the  arid  safety  of  untruth, — though  sometimes  he  swore 
softly  to  himself  at  the  tiresome  irony  of  the  office  nick- 
name which,  with  an  occasional  gilt  hatchet,  still  per- 
sisted. He  would  remember  that  evening  of  panic  at 
the  Mortons',  and  think,  lazily,  "She  can't  possibly  get  on 
Lily's  track!"  So  Lily  lived  in  anxious  thriftiness  at  16 
Maple  Street;  and  Maurice,  no  longer  acutely  afraid  of 
her,  and  only  seeing  her  two  or  three  times  a  year,  was 
more  or  less  able  to  forget  her,  in  his  growing  pleasure  in 
Edith's  presence  in  his  house — a  pleasure  quite  obvious  to 
Eleanor. 

As  for  Edith,  she  used  to  wonder,  sometimes,  why 
Eleanor  was  so  "up  stage"?  (that  was  her  latest  slang); 
but  it  did  not  trouble  her  much,  for  she  was  too  generous 
to  put  two  and  two  together.  "Eleanor  has  nervous  pros- 
tration," she  used  to  tell  herself,  with  good-natured  excuse 
for  some  especial  coldness;  and  she  even  tried,  once  in  a 
while,  "to  make  things  pleasant  for  poor  old  Eleanor!"  . 
"I  lug  her  in,"  she  told  Johnny. 

"She's  a  dose,"  said  Johnny/ 


x8a  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

"Yes,"  Edith  agreed;  " she's  stupid.  But  I'm  going  to 
pull  off  a  picnic,  some  Sunday,  to  cheer  her  up.  'Course 
you  needn't  come,  if  you  don't  want  to." 

.Johnny,  looking  properly  bored,  said,  briefly,  "I  don't 
mind."  * 

This  was  in  mid-September.  "Are  you  game  for  it, 
Eleanor?"  Edith  said  one  night  at  dinner;  "we  can  find 
some  pleasant  place  by  the  river — " 

"I  know  a  bully  place,"  Maurice  said,  "in  the  Medfield 
meadows;  remember,  Eleanor?  We  went  there  on  our 
trolley  wedding  trip,"  he  informed  Edith. 

Eleanor,  struggling  between  the  pleasure  of  Maurice's 
"remember,"  and  antagonism  at  sharing  that  sacred  re- 
membering with  Edith,  objected;  "It  may  rain." 

"Oh,  come  on, "  Edith  rallied  her :  " be  a  sport !  It  won't 
kill  you  if  it  does  rain!" 

But  Maurice,  after  his  impulsive  recollection  of  the 
"bully  place,"  remembered  that  the  trolley  car  which 
would  take  them  out  to  the  river,  must  pass  Lily's  door; 
"I  hope  it  will  rain,"  he  thought,  uneasily. 

However,  on  that  serene  September  Sunday  a  week 
later,  it  didn't  rain;  and  Maurice  fell  into  the  spirit  of 
Edith's  plans;  for,  after  all,  even  if  the  car  did  pass  Lily's 
ugly  little  house,  it  wouldn't  mean  anything  to  anybody! 
"I'll  sit  with  my  back  to  that  side  of  the  street,"  he  told 
himself.  "It's  safe  enough !  And  it  will  give  Buster  a  good 
time."  He  didn't  realize  that  he  rather  hankered  for  a 
good  time  himself;  to  be  sure,  he  felt  a  hundred  years  old! 
But  money  was  no  longer  a  very  keen  anxiety  (he  had 
passed  his  twenty-fifth  birthday) ;  and  the  day  was  glit- 
tering with  sunshine,  and  Edith  would  make  coffee,  and 
Eleanor  would  sing.  Yes!  Edith  should  have  a  good 
time! 

They  went  clanging  gayly  along  over  the  bridge,  down 
Maple  Street,  and  through  the  suburbs  of  Medfield  until 
they  came  to  the  end  of  the  car  line,  where  they  piled  out, 
with  all  their  impediments,  and  started  for  the  river  and 
the  big  locust. 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  iS3 

"You'll  sing,  Nelly,"  Maurice  said — Eleanor's  face 
lighted  with  pleasure; — "and  I'll  tell  Edith  how  a  girl 
ought  to  behave  on  her  wedding  trip,  and  you  can  instruct 
Johnny  how  to  elope." 

Then,  with  little  Bingo  springing  joyously,  but  rather 
stiffly,  ahead  of  them,  they  tramped  across  the  yellowing 
stubble  of  the  mowed  field,  talking  of  their  coffee,  and 
whether  there  would  be  too  much  wind  for  their  fire — and 
all  the  while  Maurice  was  aware  of  Lily  at  No.  16;  and 
Eleanor  was  remembering  her  hope  of  a  time  when  she 
and  Maurice  would  be  coming  here,  and  it  would  not  be 
"just  us"!  and  Johnny  was  thinking  that  Edith  was 
intelligent — for  a  woman;  and  Edith  was  telling  herself 
that  this  kind  of  thing  was  some  sense ! 

Eleanor,  sitting  down  under  the  old  locust,  watched  the 
three  young  people.  She  wondered  when  Maurice  would 
tell  her  to  sing.  "The  river  is  a  lovely  accompaniment, 
isn't  it?"  she  hinted.  No  one  replied. 

"I'm  going  in  wading  after  dinner,"  Edith  announced; 
"what  do  you  say,  boys?  Let's  take  off  our  shoes  and 
stockings,  and  walk  down  to  the  second  bridge.  Eleanor 
can  sit  here  and  guard  our  things." 

"I'm  with  you!"  Maurice  said;  and  Johnny  said  he 
didn't  mind;  but  Eleanor  protested. 

"You'll  get  your  skirts  wringing  wet,  Edith.  And — I 
thought  we  were  to  sit  here  and  sing?" 

"Oh,  you  can  sing  any  old  time,"  Edith  said,  lifting  the 
lid  of  the  coffee  pot  and  stirring  the  brown  froth  with  a 
convenient  stick. 

"And  I'm  just  to  look  on?"  Eleanor  said. 

"Why,  wade,  if  you  want  to,"  her  husband  said;  "it's 
safe  enough  to  leave  Edith's  things  here." 

After  that  he  was  too  much  absorbed  in  shooing  ants 
off  the  marmalade  to  give  any  thought  to  his  wife.  The 
luncheon  (except  to  her)  was  the  usual  delightful  discom- 
fort of  balancing  coffee  cups  on  uncertain  knees,  and 
waving  off  wasps,  and  upsetting  glasses  of  water.  Maurice 
talked  about  the  ball  game,  and  Edith  gossiped  darkly  of 


i84  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

her  teachers,  and  Johnny  Bennett  ate  enormously  and 
looked  at  Edith. 

Eleanor  neither  ate  nor  gossiped;  but  she,  too,  watched 
Edith — and  listened.  Bingo,  in  his  mistress's  lap,  had 
snarled  at  Johnny  when  he  took  Eleanor's  empty  cup 
away,  which  led  Edith  to  say  that  he  was  jealous. 

"I  don't  call  it  'jealous,'"  Eleanor  said,  "tojre  fond  of 
a  person." 

"You  can't  really  be  fond  of  anybody,  and  be  jealous," 
Edith  announced;  "or  if  you  are,  it  is  just  Bingoism." 

This  brought  a  quick  protest  from  Eleanor,  which  was 
followed  by  the  inevitable  discussion;  Edith  began  it  by 
quoting,  "'Love  forgets  self,  and  jealousy  remembers 
self.'" 

Maurice  grinned  and  said  nothing — it  was  enough  for 
him  to  see  Eleanor  hit,  hard!  But  Johnny  protested: 

"If  your  girl  monkeys  round  with  another  fellow,"  he 
said,  "you  have  a  right  to  be  jealous." 

"Of  course,"  said  Eleanor. 

"  No,  sir !"  said  Edith.  ' '  You  have  a  right  to  be  unhappy. 
If  the  other  fellow's  nicer  than  you — I  mean  if  he  has  some- 
thing that  attracts  her  that  you  haven't,  of  course  you'd 
be  unhappy!  (though  you  could  get  busy  and  be  nice 
yourself.)  Or,  if  he's  not  as  nice  as  you,  you'd  be  unhappy, 
because  you'd  be  so  awfully  disappointed  in  her.  But 
there's  no  jealousy  about  that  kind  of  thing!  Jealousy  is 
hogging  all  the  love  for  yourself.  Like  Bingo !  And  /  call 
it  plain  garden  selfishness — and  no  sense,  either,  because 
you  don't  gain  anything  by  it.  Do  you  think  you  do, 
Maurice? . . .  For  Heaven's  sake,  hand  me  the  sandwiches !" 

Maurice  didn't  express  his  thoughts ;  he  just  roared  with 
laughter.  Eleanor  reddened;  Johnny,  handing  the  sand- 
wiches, said  that,  though  Edith  generally  could  reason 
pretty  well — for  a  woman — in  this  particular  matter  she 
was  'way  off. 

"You  are  long  on  logic,  Edith,"  Maurice  agreed;  "but 
short  on  human  nature;  (she  hasn't  an  idea  how  the  shoe 
fits!)." 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  185 

"The  reason  I'm  so  up  on  jealousy,"  Edith  explained, 
complacently,  "is  because  yesterday,  in  English  Lit.,  our 
professor  worked  off  a  lot  of  quotations  on  us.  Listen  to 
this  (only  I  can't  say  just  exactly  the  words !) :  '  Though 
jealousy  be  produced  by  love,  as  ashes  by  fire,  yet  jealousy ' — 
oh,  what  does  come  next?  Oh  yes;  I  know — 'yet  jealousy 
eoctinguislies  love,  as  ashes  smother  flames.'" 

"Who  said  that?"  Maurice  said. 

Edith  said  she'd  forgotten:  "But  I  bet  it's  true.  I'd 
simply  hate  a  jealous  person,  no  matter  how  much  they 
loved  me!  Wouldn't  you,  Eleanor?  Wouldn't  you  hate 
Maurice  if  he  was  jealous  of  you?  I  declare  I  don't  see 
how  you  can  be  so  fond  of  Bingo !'r 

Maurice,  suddenly  ashamed  of  himself  for  his  pleasure 
in  seeing  Eleanor  hit,  was  saying,  inaudibly,  "Good  Lord! 
what  will  she  say  next  ? "  To  keep  her  quiet,  he  said,  good- 
naturedly,  "Don't  you  want  to  sing,  Nelly?" 

She  said,  very  low,  "No."  Her  throat  ached  with  the 
pain  of  knowing  that  the  one  little  contribution  she  could 
make  to  the  occasion  was  not  really  wanted! 

Maurice  did  not  urge  her.  He  and  the  other  two  took 
off  their  shoes  and  stockings ;  and  went  with  squeals  across 
the  stubble,  down  a  steep  bank,  to  a  pebbly  point  of  sand, 
round  which  a  sunny  swirl  of  water  chattered  loudly, 
then  went  romping  off  into  sparkling  shallows.  Edith's 
lifted  skirt,  as  she  stepped  into  the  current,  assured  her 
against  the  wetting  Eleanor  had  foreseen,  and  also  showed 
her  pretty  legs — and  Eleanor,  on  the  bank,  her  tensely 
2  trembling  hand  cuddling  Bingo  against  her  knee, 
' '  guarded  "her  things !  It  was  at  this  moment  that  her  old, 
unrecognized  envy  of  Youth  turned  into  a  perfectly  recog- 
nizable fear  of  Age.  Edith  was  a  woman  now,  not  a  child ! 
"And  I — dislike  her!"  Eleanor  said  to  herself.  She  sat 
there  alone,  thinking  of  Edith's  defects — her  big  mouth, 
her  bad  manners,  her  loud  voice;  and  as  she  thought, — 
.watching  the  waders  all  the  while  with  tear-blurred  eyes 
until  a  turn  in  the  current  hid  them — she  felt  this  new  dis- 
like flowing  in  upon  her:  "He  talks  to  her;  and  forgets 


,i86  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

all  about  me!"  .  .  .  She  was  deeply  hurt.  "He  says  she 
has  'brains.'  .  .  .  He  doesn't  mind  it  when  she  says  she 
*  doesn't  care  for  music,'  which  is  rude  to  me!  And  she 
talks  about  jealousy!  She  knows  I'm  jealous.  Any 
woman  who  loves  her  husband  is  jealous." 

Of  course  this  pathetically  false  opinion  made  it  impos- 
sible for  her  to  realize  that  jealousy  is  just  a  form  of  self- 
love,  nor  could  she  enlarge  upon  Edith's  naive  generaliza- 
tion and  say  that,  if  a  woman  suffers  because  she  is  not 
the  equal  of  the  rival  who  gains  her  lover's  love — that  is 
not  jealousy!  It  is  the  anguish  of  recognizing  her  own 
defects,  and  it  may  be  very  noble.  If  she  suffers  because 
the  rival  is  her  inferior,  that  is  not  jealousy;  it  is  the 
anguish  of  recognizing  defects  in  her  lover,  and  it,  too,  is 
noble,  for  she  is  unhappy,  not  because  he  has  slighted  her, 
but  because  he  has  slighted  himself!  Jealousy  has  no 
such  noble  elements;  it  is  the  unhappiness  that  Bingb 
knows — an  ignoble  agony!  .  .  .  But  Eleanor,  like  many 
pitiful  wives,  did  not  know  this.  Sitting  there  on  the  bank 
of  the  river,  without  aspiration  for  herself  or  regret  for 
Maurice,  she  knew  only  the  anguish  of  being  neglected. 
"He  wouldn't  have  left  me  six  years  ago,"  she  said;  "He 
doesn't  even  ask  me  if  I  want  to  wade!  I  don't;  but  he 
didn't  ask  me.  He  just  went  off  with  her ! " 

Suddenly,  her  fingers  trembling,  she  began  to  take  off 
her  shoes  and  stockings.  She  would  do  what  Edith  did! 
...  It  was  a  tremor  of  aspiration! — an  effort  to  develop 
in  herself  a  quality  he  liked  in  Edith.  She  went,  barefooted, 
with  wincing  cautiousness,  and  with  Bingo  stepping  gin- 
gerly along  beside  her,  across  the  mowed  grass;  then, 
haltingly,  down  the  bank  to  the  sandy  edge  of  the  river; 
there,  while  the  little  dog  looked  up  at  her  anxiously,  she 
dipped  a  white,  uncertain  foot  into  the  water — and  as  she 
hesitated  to  essay  the  yielding  mud,  and  the  slimy  things 
under  the  stones,  she  heard  the  returning  splash  of  wading 
feet.  A  minute  later  the  three  youngsters  appeared, 
Edith's  skirts  now  very  well  above  the  danger  line  of 
wetness,  and  the  two  men  offering  eager  guiding  hands, 


THE  VEHEMENT   FLAME  187 

which  were  entirely  disdained!  Then  as,  from  under  the 
leaning  trees,  they  rounded  the  bend,  there  came  an 
astonished  chorus: 

"Why,  look  at  Eleanor!" 

"Your  skirt's  in  the  water,"  Edith  warned  her;  "hitch 
it  up,  and  'come  on  in — the  water's  fine!'" 

She  shook  her  head,  and  turned  to  climb  up  the  bank. 

'"The  King  of  France,'"  Edith  quoted,  satirically, 
'"marched  down  a  hill,  and  then  marched  up  again!"' 

Eleanor  was  silent.  When  the  three  began  to  put  on 
their  shoes  and  stockings,  Eleanor,  putting  on  her  own, 
her  skirt  wet  and  drabbled  about  her  ankles,  heard 
Maurice  and  Johnny  offering  to  tie  Edith's  shoestrings 
— a  task  which  Edith,  with  condescending  giggles,  per- 
mitted. Both  of  the  boys — for  Maurice  seemed  suddenly 
as  much  of  a  boy  as  Johnny ! — went  on  their  knees  to  tie, 
and  re-tie,  the  brown  ribbons,  Maurice  with  gleeful  and 
ridiculous  deference. 

"Want  me  to  tie  your  shoestrings  for  you,  Nelly?"  he 
said  over  his  shoulder. 

"I  am  capable  of  tying  my  own,  thank  you,"  she  said, 
so  icily  that  the  three  playfellows  looked  at  one  another 
and  Maurice,  reddening  sharply,  said: 

"Give  us  a  song,  Nelly ! "  But  she  sitting  with  clenched 
hands  and  tensely  silent,  shook  her  head.  She  was  too 
wounded  to  speak.  For  the  rest  of  the  poor  little  picnic, 
with  its  gathering  up  of  fragments  and  burning  paper 
napkins — the  conversation  was  labored  and  conscious. 

On  the  trolley  going  home,  Edith  was  the  only  one  who 
tried  to  talk;  Eleanor,  holding  Bingo  in  her  lap,  was 
dumb;  and  Johnny — hunting  about  for  an  excuse  to  "get 
away  from  the  whole  blamed  outfit!"  only  said  "M-m" 
now  and  then.  But  Maurice  said  nothing  at  all.  After  all, 
what  can  a  man  say  when  his  wife  has  made  a  fool  of 
herself? 

"Even  Lily  would  have  had  more  sense!"  he  thought. 

13 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

dismal  festivity  of  the  meadow  marked  the  time 
1  when  Maurice  began  to  live  in  his  own  house  only  from 
a  sense  of  duty  .  .  .  and  because  Edith  was  there!  A 
fact  which  Eleanor's  aunt  recognized  almost  as  soon  as 
Eleanor  did;  so,  with  her  usual  candor,  Mrs.  Newbolt  took 
occasion  to  point  things  out  to  her  niece.  She  had  bidden 
Eleanor  come  to  dinner,  and  Eleanor  had  said  she  would — 
"if  Maurice  happened  to  be  going  out." 

"Better  come  when  he's  not  going  out,  so  he  can  be  at 
home  and  amuse  Edith!"  said  Mrs.  Newbolt.  "Eleanor, 
my  dear  father  used  to  say  that  women  were  puffect  fools, 
because  they  never  could  realize  that  if  they  left  the  door 
open,  a  cat  would  put  on  his  slippers  and  sit  by  the  fire 
and  knit;  if  they  locked  it,  he'd  climb  up  the  chimney,  but 
what  he'd  feel  free  to  prowl  on  the  roof!" 

Eleanor  preferred  to  "lock  the  door";  and  certainly 
during  that  next  winter  Edith's  gay  interest  in  every 
topic  under  heaven  was  a  roof  on  which  Maurice  prowled 
whenever  he  could!  Sometimes  he  stayed  at  home  in  the 
evening,  just  to  talk  to  her!  When  he  did,  those  "brains" 
which  Eleanor  resented,  made  him  indifferent  to  many 
badly  cooked  dinners — during  which  Eleanor  sat  at  the 
table  and  saw  his  enjoyment,  and  felt  that  dislike  of  their 
"boarder,"  which  had  become  acute  the  day  of  the  picnic, 
hardening  into  something  like  hatred.  She  wondered  how 
he  endured  the  girl's  chatter?  Sometimes  she  hinted  as 
much,  but  Edith  never  knew  she  was  being  criticized !  She 
was  too  generous  to  recognize  the  significance  of  what  she 
called  (to  herself)  Eleanor's  grouch,  and  Maurice's  delight 
in  such  unself consciousness  helped  to  keep  her  ignorant, 
for  he  held  his  tongue — with  prodigious  effort ! — even  when 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  189 

Eleanor  hit  Edith  over  his  shoulder.  If  he  defended  her, 
he  told  himself,  the  fat  would  be  in  the  fire !  So,  as  no  one 
pointed  out  to  Edith  what  the  grouch  meant,  she  had  not 
the  faintest  idea  that  Eleanor  was  saying  to  herself,  "Oh, 
if  I  could  only  get  rid  of  her!"  And  as  no  one  pointed  out 
to  Eleanor  that  the  way  to  hold  Maurice  was  not  to  get 
rid  of  Edith,  but  to  "open  the  door,"  that  corrosive  thing 
the  girl  had  called  "Bingoism"  kept  the  anger  of  the  day 
in  the  field  smoldering  in  her  mind.  It  was  like  a  banked 
fire  eating  into  her  deepest  consciousness;  it  burned  all 
that  winter;  it  was  still  burning  even  when  the  summer 
vacation  came  and  Edith  went  home.  Her  departure  was 
an  immense  relief  to  Eleanor;  she  told  Maurice  she  didn't 
want  her  to  come  back,  ever ! 

"Why  not?"  he  said,  sharply;  "I  like  having  her  here. 
Besides,  think  of  telling  Uncle  Henry  we  didn't  want 
Edith  next  winter!  If  you  have  the  nerve  for  that,  I 
haven't."  Eleanor  had  not  the  nerve;  so  when,  at  the 
end  of  June,  Edith  rushed  home,  it  was  understood  that 
she  would  be  with  Maurice  and  Eleanor  during  the 
next  term.  .  .  .  That  was  the  summer  that  marked  the 
seventh  year  of  their  marriage — and  the  fourth  year  of 
Jacky,  over  in  the  little  frame  house  on  Maple  Street. 
But  it  was  the  first  year  of  a  knowledge,  surprisingly  de- 
layed!— which  came  to  Edith;  namely,  that  Johnny  Ben- 
nett was  "queer." 

It  may  have  been  this  "queerness"  which  made  her 
attach  herself  to  Eleanor,  who,  in  August,  went  to  Green 
Hill  for  the  usual  two  weeks'  visit.  Maurice  had  to  go 
away  on  office  business  three  or  four  times  during  that 
fortnight,  but  he  came  up  for  one  Sunday.  He  had 
insisted  upon  Eleanor's  going,  because,  he  said,  she  needed 
the  change.  "Can't  you  come?"  she  pleaded.  "Do  take 
some  extra  time  from  the  office!" 

"And  be  docked?  Can't  afford  it!"  he  said;  "but  I'll 
get  one  week-end  in  with  you,"  he  promised  her,  looking 
forward  with  real  satisfaction  to  the  solitude  of  his  own 
house.  So  Eleanor,  saying  she  couldn't  understand  why 


igo  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

he  was  so  awfully  economical  now  that  he  had  his  own 
money! — came  alone, — full  of  remorse  at  deserting  him, 
and  worry  because  of  his  loneliness,  and  leaving  a  pining 
Bingo  behind  her.  But,  to  her  silent  annoyance,  as  soon 
as  she  arrived  at  Green  Hill  she  encountered  a  new  and 
tiresome  attentiveness  from  Edith!  Edith  was  inescapably 
polite.  She  did  not  urge  upon  Eleanor  any  of  those  strenu- 
ous amusements  to  which  she  and  Johnny  were  devoted; 
she  merely  gave  up  the  amusements,  and,  as  Johnny  ex- 
pressed it,  "stuck  to  Eleanor"!  Eleanor  couldn't  under- 
stand it,  and  when  Maurice  at  last  arrived,  Johnny's  per- 
plexity became  audible: 

"Perhaps,"  he  told  Edith,  satirically,  "you  may  be 
able,  now,  to  tear  yourself  away  from  Eleanor,  and  go 
fishing  with  me?  You  fish  pretty  well — for  a  woman. 
Maurice  can  lug  her  round." 

"I  will,  if  Maurice  will  go,  too,"  Edith  said. 

"What  do  you  drag  him  in  for ? " — John  paused;  under- 
standing dawned  upon  him:  "She  doesn't  want  to  be  by 
herself  with  me!"  His  tanned  face  slowly  reddened,  and 
those  brown  eyes  of  his  behind  the  big  spectacles  grew 
keen.  He  didn't  speak  for  quite  a  long  time ;  then  he  said, 
very  low,  "I'll  be  here  to-morrow  morning  at  four-thirty. 
Be  ready.  I'll  dig  bait." 

"All  right,"  said  Edith;  after  which,  for  the  first  time 
in  her  life,  she  played  a  shabby  trick  on  Johnny  Bennett; 
as  soon  as  he  had  gone  home,  she  invited  Eleanor  (who 
promptly  declined),  and  Maurice  (who  as  promptly  ac- 
cepted), to  go  fishing,  too!  Then,  having  got  what  she 
wanted,  she  reproached  herself:  "Johnny  '11  be  mad  as 
fury.  But  when  he  gets  to  saying  things  to  me  he  makes 
me  feel  funny  in  the  back  of  my  neck.  Besides,  I  want 
Maurice." 

The  fishermen  were  to  assemble  in  the  grayness  of  the 
August  dawn;  and  Johnny  was,  as  usual,  prepared  to 
throw  a  handful  of  gravel  at  Edith's  window  to  hurry  her 
downstairs.  But  when  he  loomed  up  in  the  mist,  who 
should  be  on  the  porch,  fooling  with  a  rod,  but  Maurice! 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  191 

"What's  he  btr.tting  in  for?"  Johnny  thought,  looking 
so  cross  that  Edith,  coming  out  with  the  luncheon  basket, 
was  really  remorseful.  "Hullo,  Johnny,"  she  said.  ("I 
never  played  it  on  him  before,"  she  was  thinking.)  But  at 
that  moment  her  remorse  was  lost  in  alarm,  for  standing  in 
the  doorway  was  Eleanor,  her  hair  caught  up  in  a  hurried 
twist,  a  wrapper  over  her  shoulders,  her  bare  feet  thrust 
into  pink  bedroom  slippers.  (Forty-six  looks  fifty-six 
at  4.30  A.M.) 

"Darling,"  Eleanor  said,  "I  believe  I'd  like  to  go  up 
to  the  cabin  to-day.  Do  let's  do  it — just  you  and  I!" 

The  three  young  people  all  spoke  at  once: 

Johnny  said:  "Good  scheme!  We'll  excuse  Maurice." 

Edith  said,  "Oh,  Eleanor,  Maurice  loves  fishing!" 

And  Maurice  said:  "I  sort  of  think  I'd  like  to  catch  a 
sucker  or  two  in  this  pool  Johnny  is  always  cracking  up. 
I  bet  he's  in  for  a  big  jolt  about  his  trout !  You  come,  too  ? " 

"I'd  get  so  awfully  tired.  And  I — I  thought  we  could 
have  a  day  together  up  on  the  mountain,"  she  ended, 
wistfully. 

There  was  a  dead  silence.  Johnny  was  thinking :  ' '  Gosh ! 
I  hope  she  gets  him."  And  Edith  was  thinking,  "I'd  like 
to  choke  her!"  Maurice's  thoughts  could  not  be  spoken; 
he  merely  said,  "All  right;  if  you  want  to." 

"I  don't  believe  I'll  go  fishing,  either,"  Edith  said. 

Eleanor,  on  the  threshold,  turned  quickly:  "Please 
don't  stay  at  home  on  my  account!" 

But  Maurice  settled  it.  "  I'll  not  go,"  he  said,  patiently; 
"but  you  must,  Edith."  He  threw  down  his  rod  and  went 
into  the  house;  Eleanor,  in  her  flopping  pink  slippers, 
hurried  after  him.  .  .  . 

"I  did  so  want  to  have  you  to  myself,"  she  said; 
"you  don't  mind  not  going  fishing  with  those  children, 
do  you?" 

He  said,  listlessly:  "Oh  no.  But  don't  let's  attempt  the 
cabin  stunt."  Then  he  stood  at  the  window  and  watched 
Johnny  and  Edith,  with  fishing  rods  and  lunch  basket, 
disappear  down  the  road  into  the  fog.  He  was  too  bored 


i92  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

to  be  irritated;  he  only  counted  the  hours  until  he  could 
get  back  to  Mercer,  and  the  office,  and  the  table  under  the 
silver  poplar.  "I'll  get  hold  of  the  Mortons,  and  Hannah 
can  give  us  some  sort  of  grub,  and  then  we'll  go  to  a  show," 
he  thought  "I  can  stick  it  out  here  for  thirty-six  hours 
more." 

He  stuck  it  out  that  morning  by  sitting  in  Mr.  Hough- 
ton's  studio,  one  leg  across  the  arm  of  his  chair,  reading 
and  smoking.  Once  Eleanor  came  in  and  asked  him  if  he 
was  all  right.  He  said,  briefly,  "Yes." 

But  she  was  uneasy:  "Maurice,  I'll  play  tennis  with 
you?" 

This  at  least  made  him  chuckle.  "You?  How  long  since? 
My  dear,  you  couldn't  play  a  set  to  save  your  life!" 

After  that  she  let  him  alone  for  a  while.  Early  in  the 
afternoon  the  need  to  make  up  to  him  for  what  she  had 
done  grew  intolerable:  "Darling,  let's  play  solitaire?" 

"I'm  going  to  write  letters." 

She  left  him  to  his  letters  for  an  hour,  then  came  again : 
"Let's  walk!" 

"Well,  if  you  want  to,''  Maurice  said,  and  yawned. 
So  they  trudged  off.  Eleanor,  walking  very  close  to  her 
husband,  was  thinking,  heavily,  how  far  they  were  apart; 
but  she  did  her  best  to  amuse  him  by  anxious  ponderings 
of  household  expenses.  He,  sheering  off  to  the  other  side 
of  the  road  to  escape  her  intimate  and  jostling  shoulder, 
was  thinking  of  the  expenses  of  another  household,  and 
making  no  effort  whatever  to  amuse  her.  His  silence  con- 
fessed an  irritation  which  she  felt  but  could  not  under- 
stand; so  by  and  by  she  fell  silent,  too,  though  the  helpless 
tears  stood  in  her  eyes.  Then,  apparently,  he  put  his 
annoyance,  whatever  it  was,  behind  him. 

"Nelly,"  he  said,  "let's  go  down  by  the  West  Branch 
and  meet  Edith  and  Johnny?  They'll  be  coming  home 
that  way,  'laden  with  trout/  I  suppose,"  he  ended,  sar- 
castically. 

Eleanor  began  to  say,  "Oh  no!"  Then  something, 
she  didn't  know  what,  made  her  say,  "Well,  all  right." 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  i93 

As  they  turned  into  the  wood  road  that  ran  up  toward 
the  mountain,  she  said  another  unexpected  thing: 

"Maurice,  I'm  tired.  I'll  go  home;  you  go  on  by 
yourself,  and — and  meet  Johnny."  She  didn't  know,  her- 
self, why  she  said  it !  Perhaps,  it  was  just  an  effort  to  make 
up  for  what  she  had  done  in  the  morning? 

Maurice,  astonished,  made  some  half-hearted  protest; 
he  would  go  back  with  her?  But  she  said  no,  and  walked 
home  alone.  Her  throat  ached  with  unshed  tears.  "He 
likes  to  be  with  her!  He  doesn't  want  me, — and  I  love 
him — I  love  him!" 

The  two  youngsters  had  made  a  long  day  of  it.  On 
their  way  to  the  brook  that  morning,  crashing  through 
underbrush,  climbing  rotting  rail  fences  that  were  hidden 
in  docks  and  briers,  balancing  on  the  precarious  slipperi- 
ness  of  mossy  rocks,  the  triumphant  Johnny,  his  heart 
warm  with  gratitude  to  Eleanor,  had  led  his  captive  and 
irritated  Edith.  When  they  broke  through  low-hanging 
boughs  and  found  the  pool,  the  trout  possibilities  of  which 
Johnny  had  so  earnestly  "cracked  up,"  Edith  was  dis- 
tinctly grumpy.  "Eleanor  is  a  selfish  thing,"  she  said. 
"Gimme  a  worm." 

"I  think  Maurice  would  have  been  cussedly  selfish 
not  to  do  what  she  wanted,"  Johnny  said;  "my  idea 
of  marriage  is  that  a  man  must  do  everything  his  wife 
wants." 

"Maurice  is  never  selfish!  He's  great,  simply  great!" 
Edith  said. 

"Oh,  he's  decent  enough,"  Johnny  admitted,  then 
he  paused,  frowning,  for  he  couldn't  open  his  bait  box; 
he  banged  it  on  a  stone,  pried  his  knife  under  the  lid, 
swore  at  it — and  turned  very  red.  Edith  giggled. 

"Let  me  try,"  she  said. 

"No  use;   the  rotten  thing's  stuck." 

But  she  took  it,  shook  it,  gave  an  easy  twist,  and  the 
maddening  lid — loosened,  of  course,  by  Johnny's  exer- 
tions— came  off!  Edith  shrieked  with  joy;  but  Johnny, 


i94  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

though  mortified,  was  immensely  relieved.  They  sat  down 
on  a  sloping  rock,  and  talked  bait,  and  the  grave  and 
spectacled  Johnny  became  his  old  self,  scolding  Edith  for 
talking  so  loudly.  "Girls,"  he  said,  "are  born  not  fisher- 
men!" Then  they  waded  out  into  the  stream,  and  began 
to  cast.  It  was  broad  daylight  by  this  time,  and  the  woods 
were  filling  with  netted  sunbeams;  the  water  whispered 
and  chuckled. 

"Pretty  nice?"  Johnny  said,  in  a  low  voice;  and  Edith, 
all  her  grumpiness  flown,  said: 

"You  bet  it  is!"  Then,  as  an  afterthought,  she  called 
back,  "But  Eleanor  is  the  limit!" 

Johnny,  forgetting  his  gratitude  to  Eleanor,  said,  sav- 
agely: "Keep  quiet!  You  scared  him  off !  Gosh !  girls  are 
awful." 

So  Edith  kept  quiet,  and  he  wandered  up  the  stream, 
and  she  wandered  down  the  stream,  and  they  fished,  and 
they  fished — and  they  never  caught  a  thing. 

"I  had  one  bite,"  Johnny  said  when,  at  about 
eleven,  fiercely  hungry,  they  met  on  the  bank  where 
they  had  left  their  lunch  basket;  "but  you  burst  out 
about  Eleanor,  and  drove  him  off.  Girls  simply  can't 
fish." 

Edith  was  contrite — but  doubted  the  bite.  Then  they 
sat  down  on  a  mossy  rock,  and  ate  stacks  of  sandwiches 
and  hard-boiled  eggs,  and  watched  the  water,  and  talked, 
talked,  talked.  At  least  Edith  talked — mostly  about 
Maurice.  Johnny  lit  his  pipe,  puffed  once  or  twice,  then 
let  it  go  out  and  sat  staring  into  the  green  wall  of  the  woods 
on  the  other  side  of  the  brook.  Then,  suddenly,  quietly, 
he  began  to  speak.  .  .  . 

"I  want  to  say  something." 

"The  mosquitoes  here  are  awful!"  Edith  said,  nerv- 
ously; "don't  you  think  we'd  better  go  home?" 

"Look  here,  Edith;  you've  got  to  be  half  decent  to  me 
— unless,  of  course,  you've  soured  on  me?  If  you  have, 
I'll  shut  up." 

"Johnny,  don't  be  an  idiot!    'Course  I  haven't  soured 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  195 

on  you.  You're  the  oldest  friend  I've  got.  Older  than 
Maurice,  even." 

"Well,  I  guess  I  am  an  older  friend  than  Maurice!  But 
lately  you've  treated  me  like  a  dog.  You  skulk  round  to 
keep  from  being  by  ourselves.  You  never  give  me  a 
chance  to  open  my  head  to  you — " 

"Johnny,  that's  perfectly  absurd!  I've  had  to  look 
after  Eleanor — " 

"Eleanor  nothing!    It's  me  you  want  to  shake." 

"I  do  not  want  to  shake  you!  I'm  just  busy." 

"Edith,  I  care  a  lot  about  you.  I  don't  care  much  for 
girls,  as  a  rule.  But  you're  not  girly.  And  every  time  I 
try  to  talk  to  you,  you  sidestep  me." 

"Now,  Johnny — " 

"But  I'm  going  to  tell  you,  all  the  same."  He  made  a 
clutch  at  the  sopping-wet  hem  of  her  skirt.  "I  will  say 
it!  I  care  an  awful  lot  about  you.  I'm  not  a  boy.  I  want 
to  marry  you." 

There  was  a  dead  silence;  then  Edith  said,  despair- 
ingly, "Oh,  Johnny,  how  perfectly  horrid  you  are!"  He 
gasped.  "You  simply  spoil  everything  with  this  sort  of 
...  of  ...  of  talk." 

"You  mean  you  don't  like  me?"    His  face  twitched. 

"Like  you?  I  like  you  awfully!  That's  why  I'm  so 
mad  at  you.  Why,  I'm  awfully  fond  of  you — " 

"Edith!" 

"I  mean  I  never  had  a  friend  like  you.  I've  always 
liked  you  ten  times  better  than  any  silly  old  girl  friend  I 
ever  had.  I've  liked  you  almost  as  much  as  Maurice. 
Of  course  I  shall  never  like  anybody  as  much  as  Maurice. 
He  comes  next  to  father  and  mother.  But  now  you  go 
and — and  talk.  ...  I  just  can't  bear  it,"  Edith  said,  and 
fumbled  for  her  pocket  handkerchief;  "I  hate  talk."  Her 
eyes  overflowed. 

"Edith!  Look  here;  now,  don't!  Honestly,  I  can  stand 
being  turned  down,  but  I  can't  stand — that.  Edith, 
please!  I  never  saw  you  do  that — girl  stunt.  I'll  never 
bother  you  again,  if  you'll  just  stop  crying!" 


i96  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

Edith,  unable  to  find  her  handkerchief,  bent  over  and 
wiped  her  eyes  on  her  dress.  "I'm  not  crying,"  she  said, 
huskily;  "but—" 

"I  think,"  John, Bennett  said,  "honestly,  Edith,  I 
think  I've  loved  you  all  my  life." 

"And  I  have  loved  you,"  she  said;  "You  are  a  lamb! 
Oh,  Johnny,  I'm  perfectly  crazy  about  you!" 

His  swiftly  illuminating  face  made  her  add,  hastily, 
"and  now  you  go  and  spoil  everything!" 

"I  won't  spoil  things,  Skeezics,"  he  said,  gently;  "oh, 
say,  Edith,  let  up  on  crying!  That  breaks  me  all  up." 

But  Edith,  having  discovered  her  handkerchief,  was 
mopping  very  flushed  cheeks  and  mumbling  on  about  her 
own  woes.  "Why  can't  you  be  satisfied  just  to  go  on  the 
way  we  always  have?  Why  can't  you  be  satisfied  to  have 
me  like  you  almost  as  much  as  I  like  Maurice?" 

"Maurice!"  the  young  man  said,  with  a  helpless  laugh. 
"Oh,  Edith,  you  are  several  kinds  of  a  goose!  In  the  first 
place,  Maurice  is  married;  and  in  the  second  place,  he's 
old  enough  to  be  your  father — ' 

"He  isn't  old  enough  to  be  my  father !  And  I  shall  never 
like  anybody  as  much  as  Maurice,  because  there  isn't  any- 
body like  him  in  the  entire  world.  I've  always  though  he 
was  exactly  like  Sir  Walter  Raleigh.  Besides,  I  shall  never 
marry  anybody!  But  I  mean,  I  don't  see  why  it  isn't 
enough  for  you  to  have  me  awfully  fond  of  you?" 

"Well,  it  isn't,"  Johnny  said,  briefly,  "but  don't  you 
worry."  He  was  white,  but  his  tenderness  was  like  a  new 
sense.  Edith  had  never  seen  this  Johnny.  Her  entirely 
selfish  impatience  turned  to  shyness.  "Edith,"  he  said, 
very  gently,  "you  don't  understand,  dear.  You're  awfully 
young — younger  than  your  age.  I  didn't  take  in  how 
young  you  were — talking  about  Maurice!  I  suppose  it's 
because  you  know  so  few  girls,  that  you  are  so  young. 
Well ;  I  can't  hang  round  with  you  any  more,  as  if  we  were 
ten  years  old.  You  see,  I — I  love  you,  Edith.  That  makes 
the  difference  .  .  .  dear." 

"Oh,"  said  Edith,  desperately,  "how  perfectly  horrid — " 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  i97 

She  looked  really  distracted,  poor  child !  (but  that  was  the 
moment  when  her  preposterous  youthfulness  ceased.)  She 
jumped  to  her  feet  so  suddenly  that  Johnny,  who  had 
begun,  his  fingers  trembling,  to  scrape  out  the  bowl  of 
his  pipe,  dropped  his  jackknife,  which  rolled  down  the 
steeply  sloping  rock  into  the  water.  "Oh,  I'm  so  sorry!" 
Edith  said. 

John  sighed.  "Oh,  that's  nothing,"  he  said,  and  slid 
over  the  moss  and  ferns  to  the  water's  edge ;  there,  lying 
flat  on  his  stomach,  his  sleeve  rolled  up,  he  thrust  his 
bare  white  arm  into  the  dark  and  troutless  depths  of  the 
pool,  and  salvaged  his  knife.  Edith,  on  the  bank,  began 
furiously  to  pack  up.  When  Johnny  climbed  back  to  her 
she  said  she  wanted  to  go  home,  "now!" 

"All  right,"  he  said  again,  gently. 

So,  silently,  they  started  homeward;  and  never  in  her 
life  had  Edith  been  so  glad  to  see  any  human  creature  as 
she  was  to  see  Maurice  on  the  West  Branch  Road!  But 
she  let  him  do  all  the  talking.  To  herself  she  was  saying, 
"It's  all  Eleanor's  fault  for  not  letting  him  come  this 
morning!  I  just  hate  her!"  .  .  . 

That  night  her  father  said  to  her  mother,  rather  sadly, 
"Mary,  our  little  girl  has  grown  up.  Johnny  Bennett  is 
casting  sheep's  eyes  at  her." 

' '  Nonsense ! ' '  said  Mary  Houghton,  comfortably ;  ' '  she's 
a  perfect  child,  and  so  is  he." 


CHAPTER  XIX 

CURIOUSLY  enough,  though  Edith's  mother  did  not 
V>  recognize  what  was  going  on  between  "the  children," 
Eleanor  did.  When  she  came  back  to  Mercer,  a  week  later, 
she  overflowed  about  it  to  Maurice.  "Calf  love!"  she 
summed  it  up. 

"She  didn't  look  down  on  that  kind  of  love  seven  years 
ago,"  he  thought,  cynically.  But  he  didn't  say  so;  no 
matter  what  his  thoughts  were,  he  was  always  kind  to 
Eleanor.  Lily,  over  in  Medfield;  Lily,  in  the  small,  secret 
house;  Lily,  with  the  good-looking  little  boy — blue-eyed, 
rosy-cheeked,  blond-haired ! — the  squalid  memory  of  Lily, 
said  to  him,  over  and  over:  "You  are  a  confounded 
liar;  so  the  least  you  can  do  is  to  be  decent  to  Eleanor." 

So  he  was  kind. 

"I  couldn't  bear  myself,"  he  used  to  think,  "if  I  wasn't 
—but,  0  Lord!" 

That  "0  Lord!"  was  his  summing  up  of  a  growing 
and  demoralizing  sense  of  the  worthlessness  and  unreality 
of  life.  Like  Solomon  (and  all  the  rest  of  us,  who  see  the 
universe  as  a  mirror  for  ourselves !)  he  appraised  humanity 
at  his  valuation  of  himself.  He  didn't  use  Solomon's  six 
words,  but  the  eight  of  his  generation  were  just  as  exact 
— "The  whole  blooming  outfit  is  a  rotten  lie!  If,"  he  re- 
flected, "deceit  isn't  on  my  'Lily'  line,  it  is  on  a  thousand 
other  lines."  From  the  small  cowardices  of  appreciations 
and  admirations  which  one  did  not  really  feel,  up  through 
the  bread-and-butter  necessities  of  business,  on  into  the 
ridiculousness  of  what  is  called  "Democracy"  or  "Lib- 
erty"— on,  even,  into  those  emotional  evasions  of  logic 
and  reason  labeled  "Religion" — all  lies — all  lies!  he  told 
himself.  ' '  And  I, "  he  used  to  think,  looking  back  on  seven 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  199 

years  of  marriage,  "I  am  the  most  accomplished  liar  of  the 
whole  shootin'  match !  ...  If  they  get  off  that  G.  Wash- 
ington gag  on  me  any  more  at  the  office,  somebody  '11  get 
their  head  punched." 

All  the  same,  even  if  he  did  say,  "0  Lord!"  he  was 
carefully  kind  to  his  boring  wife. 

But  when  Edith  (suddenly  grown  up,  it  seemed  to 
Maurice)  came  back  for  the  fall  term,  he  said  "0  Lord!" 
less  frequently.  The  world  began  to  seem  to  him  a  less  rot- 
ten place.  "Nice  to  have  you  round  again,  Skeezics !" 
he  told  her;  and  Eleanor,  listening,  went  up  to  her  room, 
and  sat  with  her  fingers  pressed  hard  on  her  eyes.  "It's 
dreadful  to  have  her  around!  How  can  I  get  rid  of  her?" 
she  thought.  Very  often  now  the  flame  of  jealousy  flared 
up;  it  scorched  her  whenever  she  recognized  Edith's 
"brains,"  whenever  she  noticed  some  gay  fearlessness,  or 
easy  capability;  whenever  she  watched  the  girl's  high- 
handed treatment  of  Maurice :  criticizing  him !  Telling  him 
he  was  mean  because  he  was  always  saying  he  "couldn't 
afford  things"!  Declaring  that  she  wished  he  would  stop 
his  everlasting  practicing — and  apparently  not  caring  a 
copper  for  him!  If  Edith  said,  "Oh,  Maurice,  you  are 
a  perfect  idiot!"  Eleanor  would  see  him  grin  with  pleasure; 
but  when  Eleanor  put  her  arms  around  him  and  kissed 
him,  he  sighed.  To  Maurice's  wife  these  things  were  all 
like  oil  on  fire ;  but  it  never  occurred  to  her  to  try  to  develop 
in  herself  any  of  the  qualities  he  seemed  to  find  attrac- 
tive in  Edith.  Instead,  she  thought  of  that  June  day  in 
the  meadow  by  the  river  when  he  said  he  loved  her 
inefficiency — he  loved  her  timidity,  and,  oh,  how  he  had 
loved  her  love!  He  had  made  her  promise  to  be  jealous! 
Eleanor  was  not  a  reasoning  person — probably  no  jealous 
woman  is  j  but  she  did  recognize  the  fact  that  what  made 
him  love  her  then,  made  him  impatient  with  her  now. 
This  seemed  to  her  irrational ;  and  so,  of  course,  it  was  I—- 
just as  the  tide  is  irrational,  or  the  turning  of  the  earth  on 
its  axis  is  irrational.  Nature  has  nothing  to  do  with  reason. 
So,  in  its  deep  and  beautiful  and  animal  beginnings,  Love, 


2oo  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

too,  is  irrational.  It  has  to  ascend  to  Reason!  But 
Eleanor  did  not  know  these  things.  All  she  knew  was 
that  Maurice  hurt  her,  a  dozen  times  a  day. 

She  was  brooding  over  this  one  Sunday  afternoon  in 
late  September,  when,  at  the  open  window  of  her  bed- 
room, with  Bingo  snoozing  in  her  lap,  she  listened  to 
Edith,  down  in  the  garden:  "How  about  a  jug  of  dahlias 
on  the  table?" 

And  Maurice:  "Bully!  Say,  Edith,  why  couldn't  we 
have  a  yellow  scheme  for  the  grub  ?  Orange  cup,  and  that 
sort  of  fussy  business  you  make  out  of  cheese  and  the 
yolks  of  eggs?  And  yellow  cakes?" 

"Splendid!  I'll  mix  up  some  perfectly  stunning  little 
sponge  cakes,  'Lemon  Queens.'  Yellow  as  anything!" 

This  was  all  to  get  ready  for  a  tea  under  the  silver 
poplar,  which  was  dropping  yellow  leaves  down  on  the 
green  table,  and  the  mossy  brick  path,  and  the  chairs  for 
the  company.  The  Mortons  were  coming,  and  there 
would  be,  Eleanor  told  herself,  wearily,  the  usual  shriek- 
ing over  flat  jokes, — Edith's  jokes,  mostly.  Her  dislike  of 
Edith  was  a  burning  ache  below  her  breastbone.  "  Maurice 
has  her,  so  he  doesn't  want  me,"  she  thought;  then  sud- 
denly she  got  up  and  hurried  downstairs.  "I'll  fix  the 
table!"  she  said,  peremptorily. 

"It's  all  done,"  Edith  said;  "doesn't  it  look  pretty? 
Oh,  Eleanor,  let  me  put  a  dahlia  behind  your  ear !  You'll 
look  like  a  Spanish  lady!"  She  put  the  gorgeous  flower 
into  the  soft  disorder  of  Eleanor's  dark  hair,  avoiding 
Bingo's  angry  objections,  and  said,  with  open  admiration, 
"Eleanor,  you  are  handsome!  I  adore  dahlias!"  she  an- 
nounced ;  ' '  those  quilly  ones,  red  on  the  outside  and  yellow 
inside!  There  are  some  stunning  ones  on  Maple  Street, 
where  I  saw  that  Dale  woman.  Wonder  if  she'd  sell  some 
roots?" 

The  color  flew  into  Maurice's  face.  "Did  you  get  your 
bicycle  mended?"  he  said. 

Instantly  Edith  forgot  the  dahlias,  and  plunged  into 
bicycle  technicalities,  ending  with  the  query,  "Why  don't 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  201 

you  squeeze  out  some  money,  and  buy  one  of  those  cheap, 
little  automobiles,  Maurice,  you  mean  old  thing  I" 

"Can't  afford  it,"  Maurice  said. 

But  Eleanor  was  puzzled.  There  had  been  a  hurried 
note  in  Maurice's  voice  when  he  asked  Edith  about  her 
bicycle  —  an  imperative  changing  of  the  subject!  She 
looked  at  him  wonderingly.  Why  should  he  change  the 
subject?  Was  he  annoyed  at  Edith's  bad  taste  in  referring 
to  the  creature?  But  Edith's  taste  was  always  bad,  and 
Maurice  was  not  generally  so  sensitive  to  it ;  not  as  sensi- 
tive as  he  ought  to  be !  Or  as  he  had  been  in  those  old  days 
when  he  had  said  that  Eleanor  was  too  lovely  to  know  the 
wickedness  of  the  world,  and  he  "didn't  want  her  to"! 
She  was  really  perplexed;  and  when  Edith  rushed  off  to 
make  the  cakes,  and  Maurice  went  indoors,  she  sat  there 
in  the  garden,  looking  absently  out  through  the  rusty  bars 
of  the  iron  gate  at  the  distant  glimmer  of  the  river,  and 
wondered:  "Why?" 

She  was  still  wondering  even  when  the  Mortons  arrived, 
bringing  with  them — of  all  people! — Doctor  Nelson. 
("Gosh!  "  said  Maurice.)  "We're  celebrating  his  appoint- 
ment at  the  hospital;  he's  the  new  superintendent!"  Mrs. 
Morton  explained. 

Eleanor  said,  mechanically,  "So  glad  to  see  you,  Doctor 
Nelson!"  But  she  was  saying  to  herself,  "Why  was 
Maurice  provoked  when  Edith  spoke  of  Mrs.  Dale?" 
When  some  more  noisy  and  very  young  people  arrived, 
she  was  too  abstracted  to  talk  to  them.  She  was  so  silent 
that  most  of  them  forgot  her;  until  Mrs.  Morton,  sud- 
denly remembering  her  existence,  tried  to  be  conversa- 
tional: 

"I  suppose  Mr.  Curtis  told  you  of  our  wild  adventure 
on  the  river  in  August,  when  we  got  beached  and  spent 
the  afternoon  on  a  mud  flat?" 

"No,"  Eleanor  said,  vaguely.  But  afterward,  when 
the  guests  had  gone,  she  said  to  Maurice,  "Why  didn't 
you  tell  me  about  your  adventure  with  the  Mortons?" 

"He  told  me,"  Edith  said,  complacently. 


502  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

( 

"I  forgot,  I  suppose,"  Maurice  said,  carelessly,  and 

lounged  off  into  the  house  to  sit  down  at  the  piano — where 

he  immediately  "forgot"  not  only  the  adventure  on  the 

•  river — but  even  his  dismay  at  seeing  Doctor  Nelson! — who 

>  by  this  time  was,  of  course,  quite  certain  that  it  was  a ' '  rum 

world." 

That  winter — although  he  was  not  conscious  of  it — 
Maurice's  "forgetfulness"  in  regard  to  his  wife  became 
more  and  more  marked,  so  it  was  a  year  of  darkening 
loneliness  for  Eleanor.  She  was  at  last  on  that  "desert 
island" — which  had  once  seemed  so  desirable  to  her; — 
she  had  nothing  to  interest  her  except  her  music  (and  the 
quality  of  her  voice  was  changing,  pathetically) ;  further- 
more, Maurice  rarely  asked  her  to  sing,  so  the  passion 
had  gone  out  of  what  voice  she  had!  She  didn't  care  for 
books;  she  didn't  know  how  to  sew;  and,  except  for  Mrs. 
Newbolt,  there  was  no  one  she  wanted  to  see.  Often,  in 
her  empty  evenings,  while  Edith  was  in  her  own  room 
studying,  she  sat  by  the  fire  and  cried,  and  broke  her  heart 
upon  her  desire  for  a  child — "ilien  he  would  be  happy,  and 
stay  at  home!" 

It  was  a  dull  house;  so  dull  that  Edith  made  up  her 
mind  to  get  out  of  it  for  her  next  winter  at  Fern  Hill. 
When  she  went  home  for  the  Easter  vacation,  she  ex- 
pressed decided  opinions:  "Father,  once,  ages  ago" — 
she  was  sitting  on  her  father's  knee,  and  tormenting  him 
by  trying  to  take  his  cigar  away  from  him — "you  got  off 
something  about  the  dinner  of  herbs  and  Eleanor's  stalled 
ox—" 

"Good  heavens,  Buster!  You  haven't  said  that  before 
Eleanor?" 

"Ha!  I  got  a  rise  out  of  you!"  Edith  said,  joyfully;  "I 
haven't  mentioned  it,  yet;  but  I  shall  make  a  point  of 
doing  so  unless  you  order  two  pounds  of  candy  for  me,  at 
once.  Well,  I  suppose  what  you  meant  was  that  Eleanor 
is  stupid?" 

"Mary,"  said  Henry  Houghton,  "your  blackmailing 
daughter  is  displaying  a  glimmer  of  intelligence." 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  203 

"I'm  only  reminding  you  of  your  own  remark,"  Edith 
said,  "to  explain  why  I  want  to  be  in  one  of  the  dormi- 
tories next  winter.  Eleanor  is  stupid — though  she's  never 
fed  me  on  stalled  ox !  And  I  think  she  sort  of  doesn't  like  it 
because  I'm  not  awfully  fond  of  music." 

"You  are  an  absolute  heathen  about  music,"  her  father 
said. 

"Well,  it  bores  me,"  Edith  explained,  cheerfully; 
"though  I  adore  Maurice's  playing.  Maurice  is  a  lamb, 
and  I  adore  just  being  in  the  house  with  him!  But  she's 
nasty  to  him  sometimes.  And  when  she  is,  I'd  like  to 
choke  her!" 

"Edith — Edith — "  her  mother  remonstrated.  And  her 
father  reminded  her  that  she  must  not  lose  her  temper. 

"Let  your  other  parent  be  a  warning  to  you  as  to  the 
horrors  of  an  uncontrolled  temper,"  said  Henry  Houghton; 
"I  have  known  your  mother,  in  one  of  her  outbursts  of 
fury,  so  far  forget  herself  as  to  say,  '  Oh,  my! ' ' 

Edith  grinned,  but  insisted,  "Eleanor  is  dull  as  all 
get  out!" 

"Consider  the  stars,"  Mrs.  Houghton  encouraged  her. 

But  Mr.  Houghton  said,  "Mary,  you've  got  to  do 
something  about  this  girl's  English!  .  .  .  You  miss  John 
Bennett?"  he  asked  Edith  (Johnny  was  taking  a  special 
course  in  an  Eastern  institute  of  technology). 

"He  did  well  enough  to  fill  in  the  chinks,"  Edith  said, 
carelessly;  "but  it's  Maurice's  being  away  that  takes  the 
starch  out  of  me.  He's  everlastingly  tearing  off  on  business. 
And  when  he's  at  home — "  Edith  was  suddenly  grave — 
"well,  of  course  Maurice  is  always  'the  boy  stands  on  the 
burning  deck';  but  you  can't  help  seeing  that  he's  fed  up 
on  poor  old  Eleanor!  Sometimes  I  wonder  he  ever  does 
come  home!  If  I  were  in  his  place,  when  she  gets  to 
nagging  I'd  go  right  up  in  the  air!  I'd  say,  well, — some- 
thing. But  he  keeps  his  tongue  between  his  teeth." 

That  evening,  when  Henry  Houghton  was  alone  with 
his  wife,  he  said  what  he  thought  about  Maurice:  "He  is 

standing  on  the  burning  deck  of  this  pathetic  marriage 
14 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

of  his,  magnificently.    He  never  bats  an  eyelash!    (Your 
daughter's  slang  is  vulgar.)  " 

"Eleanor  is  the  pathetic  one,"  Mary  Houghton  said,' 
sadly;  "Maurice  has  grown  cynical — which  is  a  sort  of 
protection  to  him,  I  suppose.  Yes;  I'm  afraid  Edith  is 
right;  she'd  better  be  out  at  the  school  next  winter.  It 
isn't  well  for  a  girl  to  see  differences  between  a  husband 
and  wife.  .  .  .  Henry,  you  sha'n't  have  another  cigar! 
That's  the  third  since  supper!  Dear,  what  is  the  trouble 
about  Maurice?" 

"Mary,  things  have  come  to  a  pretty  pass,  when  you 
snoop  around  and  count  up  my  cigars!  I  will  smoke!" 
But  he  withdrew  an  empty  hand  from  his  cigar  box,  and 
said,  sighing,  "I  wish  I  could  tell  you  about  Maurice, 
Kit;  but  I  can't  betray  his  confidence." 

"If  I  guessed,  you  wouldn't  betray  anything?" 

"Well,  no.    But—" 

"I  guessed  it  a  good  wnile  ago.  Some  foolishness  about 
a  woman,  of  course.  Or — or  badness?"  she  ended,  sadly. 

He  nodded.     "I  wish  I  was  asleep  whenever  I  think 
of  it!    Mary,  there  are  some  pretty  steep  grades  on  Fool 
Hill,  and  he's  had  hard  climbing.  .  .  .  It's  ancient  history, 
now;  but  I  can't  go  into  it." 

" Of  course  not.  Oh,  my  poor  Maurice!  Does  Eleanor, 
know?" 

"Heavens,  no!   It  wouldn't  do." 

"Honey,  the  unforgivable  thing,  to  a  woman,  is  not 
the  sin,  but  the  deceit.  And,  besides,  Eleanor  loves  him 
enough  to  forgive  him.  She  would  die  for  him,  I  really 
believe!" 

"Yet  the  green-eyed  monster  looks  out  of  her  eyes  if  he 
plays  checkers  with  Edith!  My  darling,"  said  Henry 
Houghton,  "as  I  have  before  remarked,  your  ignorance  on 
this  one  subject  is  colossal.  Women  can't  stand  truth." 

"It's  a  provision  of  nature,  then,  that  all  men  are 
liars?"  she  inquired,  sweetly;  "Henry,  the  loss  of  Edith's 
board  won't  trouble  Maurice  much,  will  it?" 

"  Not  as  much,  of  course,  now  that  he  has  all  his  money; 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  205 

but  he  has  to  scratch  gravel  to  make  four  ends  meet," 
Henry  Houghton  said. 

"Four  ends!"  she  said;  "oh,  is  it  as  bad  as  that?  He 
has  to  support — somebody?" 

He  said,  "Yes;  so  long  as  you  have  guessed.  Mary,  I 
really  must  have  a  smoke." 

"Why  am  I  so  weak-minded  as  to  give  in  to  you!"  she 
sighed;  then  handed  him  the  cigar  box,  and  scratched  a 
match  for  him;  he  held  her  wrist — the  sputtering  match 
in  her  fingers — lighted  the  cigar,  blew  out  the  match,  and 
kissed  her  hand. 

"You  are  a  snooper  and  a  porcupine  about  tobacco: 
but  otherwise  quite  a  nice  woman."  he  said. 


CHAPTER/XX 

WHEN  Edith's  Easter  vacation  was  over,  and  she 
went  back  to  Mercer,  she  was  followed  by  a  letter 
from  Mrs.  Houghton  to  Eleanor,  explaining  the  plan  for 
the  school  dormitory  the  following  winter.  But  there  was 
another  letter,  to  Maurice,  addressed  (discreetly)  to  his 
office.  It  was  from  Henry  Houghton,  and  it  was  to  the 
effect  that  if  any  "unexpected  expenses"  came  along,  and 
Maurice  felt  strapped  because  of  the  cessation  of  Edith's 
board,  he  must  let  Mr.  Houghton  know;  then  a  suggestion 
as  to  realizing  on  certain  securities. 

"That's  considerate  in  him,"  Eleanor  said;  "but  I 
don't  know  what  'unexpected  expenses'  we  could  have?" 

It  was  a  chilly  April  day.  Maurice  happened  to  be 
laid  up  home  with  a  sore  throat;  Eleanor,  searching  for 
a  cook,  had  stopped  at  his  office  for  a  lease  he  wanted 
to  see,  and  brought  back  with  her  some  mail  she  found 
on  his  desk. 

"I  knew  this  letter  was  from  Mr.  Houghton,  so  I 
opened  it,"  she  said,  as  she  handed  it  to  him.  His  instant 
and  very  sharp  annoyance  surprised  her.  "I  wouldn't 
open  your  business  letters,"  she  defended  herself;  "but 
I  didn't  suppose  you'd  mind  my  seeing  anything  the 
Houghtons  might  write — " 

"I  don't  like  to  have  any  of  my  mail  opened!"  he  said, 
briefly,  his  eyes  raking  Henry  Houghton 's  letter,  and  dis- 
covering (of  course!)  nothing  in  the  fine,  precise  hand- 
writing which  was  in  the  least  betraying.  ("But  suppose 
he  had  said  what  the  'unexpected  expenses'  might  be!") 

"We  shall  miss  Edith's  board,"  Eleanor  said;  "but,  oh, 
I'll  be  so  glad  to  have  her  go!" 

Maurice  was  silent.    "If  she  lives  in  Medfield  all  the 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  207 

time,  she'll  be  sure  and  run  into  Lily, "  he  thought.  "The 
devil's  in  it."  He  was  in  his  bedroom,  wrapped  up  in  a 
blanket,  shivering  and  hot  and  headachy.  The  chance  of 
Edith's  "running  into  Lily"  would,  of  course,  be  even  less 
if  she  were  at  Fern  Hill,  than  it  was  now  when  she  was 
going  back  and  forth  in  the  trolley  every  day;  but  he  was 
so  uncomfortable,  physically,  that  he  didn't  think  of  that ; 
and  his  preoccupation  made  him  blind  to  Eleanor's  hurt 
look. 

"I  am  willing  to  have  you  read  all  my  letters,"  she  said. 

"I'm  not  willing  to  have  you  read  mine!"  he  retorted. 

"Why  not?"  she  demanded — "unless  you  have  secrets 
from  me." 

"Oh,  Eleanor,  don't  be  an  idiot!"  he  said,  wearily. 

"I  believe  you  have  secrets!"  she  said — and  burst  out 
crying  and  ran  out  of  the  room. 

He  called  her  back  and  apologized  for  his  irritability; 
but  as  he  got  better,  he  forgot  that  he  had  been  irritable — 
he  had  something  else  to  think  of !  He  must  get  down  to 
the  office  and  write  to  Mr.  Houghton,  asking  him  to 
address  personal  letters  to  a  post-office  box.  And  he  made 
things  still  safer  by  going  out  to  Medfield  to  see  Lily  and 
give  her  the  number  of  the  box  in  case  she,  too,  had  occa- 
sion to  write  any  "personal"  letters,  which,  indeed,  she 
very  rarely  had.  "I  say  that  for  her!"  Maurice  told  him- 
self. He  hoped — as  he  always  did  when  he  had  to  go  to 
Maple  Street,  that  he  would  not  see  It — an  It  which  had, 
of  course,  long  before  this,  acquired  sufficient  personality 
to  its  father  to  be  referred  to  as  "  Jacky  " ;  a  Jacky  who,  in 
his  turn,  had  discovered  sufficient  personality  in  Maurice 
to  call  him  "Mr.  Gem'man" — a  corruption  of  his  mother's 
title  for  her  very  infrequent  visitor,  "the  gentleman." 

Jacky 's  "Mr.  Gem'man"  found  the  front  door  of  the 
little  house  open,  and,  looking  in,  saw  Lily  in  the  parlor, 
mounted  on  a  ladder,  hanging  wall  paper.  She  stepped 
down,  laughing,  and  moved  her  bucket  of  paste  out  of  his 
way. 

"Won't  you  be  seated?"  she  said.    Her  rosy  face  was 


2oS  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

beaming  with  artistic  satisfaction;  "Ain't  this  paper 
lovely?"  she  demanded;  "it's  one  of  them  children's 
papers  that's  all  the  rage  now.  I  call  it  a  reg'lar  art  gal- 
lery !  Look  at  the  pants  on  them  rabbits !  It  pretty  near 
broke  me  to  buy  it.  The  swells  put  this  kind  of  paper  in 
'nurseries,'  and  stick  their  kids  off  in  'em;  but  that  ain't 
me!  I  put  it  on  the  parlor !  Set  down,  won't  you  ? ' ' 

Maurice  sat  down  and,  very  much  bored,  listened  while 
Lily  chattered  on,  with  stories  about  Jacky: 

"He  says  to  the  milkman  yesterday,  'I  like  your 
shirt,'  he  says.  And  Amos — that's  his  name — he  said, 
'You  can  get  one  like  it  when  you're  grown  up  like  me.' 
And  Jacky,  he  says — oh,  just  as  sad! — 'I'd  rather  have 
it  now,  'cause  when  I  grow  up,  maybe  I'll  be  a  lady.' " 

Maurice  smiled  perfunctorily. 

"Ain't  he  the  limit?"  Lily  demanded,  proudly;  "he's 
a  reg'lar  rascal!  He  stuck  out  his  tongue  at  the  grocer's 
boy,  yesterday,  'cause  he  stepped  on  my  pansy  bed.  I 
wish  you  could  'a'  seen  him." 

Maurice  swallowed  a  yawn.    "He's  fresh." 

'"Course,"  Lily  said,  quickly,  "I  gave  him  a  smack  I 
He's  getting  a  good  bringing  up,  Mr.  Curtis.  I  give  him 
a  cent  every  morning,  to  say  his  prayers." 

Maurice  didn't  care  a  copper  about  Jacky's  manners, 
or  his  morals,  either;  but  he  said,  carelessly,  "A  kid  that's 
fresh  is  a  bore." 

Lily  frowned.  When  Maurice,  having  explained  about 
the  letter  box,  gave  her  the  usual  "present"  she  made 
her  usual  good-natured  protest — but  this  time  there  was 
more  earnestness  in  it,  and  even  a  little  sharpness.  "I 
don't  need  it;  I've  got  three  more  mealers — well,  one  of 
'em  can't  pay  me;  her  husband's  out  of  work;  but  she 
don't  eat  more  than  a  canary,  poor  thing!  I  can  take  care 
of  Jacky  myself" 

The  emphasis  puzzled  Jacky's  father  for  a  moment. 
That  Lily,  seeing  the  growing  perfection  of  her  handsome, 
naughty  little  boy,  was  becoming  uneasy  lest  Maurice 
might  be  moved  to  envy,  never  occurred  to  him.  If  it 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  209 

had,  he  would  of  course  have  been  enormously  "relieved; 
he  might  even  have  played  upon  her  fear  of  such  an  impos- 
sibility to  induce  her  to  move  away  from  Mercer!  As  it 
was,  after  listening  to  the  account  of  the  pansy  catas- 
trophe, he  got  up  to  go,  thankful  that  he  had  not  had  to 
lay  eyes  on  the  child,  whose  voice  he  heard  from  the 
back  yard. 

Lily,  friendly  enough  in  spite  of  that  moment  of  resent-" 
ment,  went  to  the  front  door  with  him.  She  had  grown 
rather  stout  in  the  last  year  or  two,  but  she  was  always  as 
shiningly  clean  as  a  rose,  and  her  little  lodging  house  was 
clean,  too;  she  was  indefatigably  thorough — scrubbing 
and  sweeping  and  dusting  from  morning  to  night!  "It's 
good  business,"  said  little  Lily;  "and  it  is  just  honest,  too, 
for  they  pay  me  good!"  Her  only  unbusinesslike  quality 
was  a  generous  kindliness,  which  sometimes  considered 
the  "mealers"'  purses  rather  than  her  own.  She  had,  to 
be  sure,  small  outbursts  of  temper,  when  she  "smacked" 
Jacky,  or  berated  her  lodgers  for  wasting  gas;  but  Jacky 
was  smothered  with  kisses  even  before  his  howls  ceased, 
and  the  lodgers  were  placated  with  cookies  the  very  next 
day — but  that,  too,  was  "good  business"!  Her  "respecta- 
bility" had  become  a  deep  satisfaction  to  her.  She  occa- 
sionally referred  to  herself  as  "a  perfect  lady."  Her  feel- 
ing about  "imperfect"  ladies  was  of  most  virulent  dis- 
approval. But  she  had  no  more  spirituality  than  a  hen. 
Her  face  was  as  good-humored,  and  common,  and  pretty 
as  ever;  and  she  had  a  fund  of  not  too  refined,  but  always 
funny,  stories  to  tell  Maurice;  so  he  liked  her,  after  a 
fashion,  and  she  liked  him,  after  a  fashion,  too,  although 
she  was  a  little  afraid  of  him;  his  bored  preoccupation 
seemed  like  sternness  to  Lily.  "Grouchiness,"  she  called 
it;  "probably  that's  why  he  don't  take  to  Jacky,"  she 
thought;  "well,  it's  lucky  he  don't,  for  he  shouldn't  have 
him!"  But  as  Maurice,  on  the  little  porch,  said  good-by, 
she  really  wondered  at  his  queerness  in  not  taking  to 
Jacky,  who,  grimy  and  handsome,  was  sitting  on  the 
ground,  spooning  earth  into  an  empty  lard  pail. 


210  • 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 


"Come  in  out  o'  the  dirt,  Sweety!"  Lily  called  to 
him. 

Jacky  rose  reluctantly,  then  stood  looking,  open- 
mouthed,  at  his  mother's  visitor. 

"Say,"  he  remarked;  "I  kin  swear." 

"You  don't  say  so!"  said  Maurice. 

"I  kin  say  'dam,'"  Jacky  announced,  gravely. 

"You  are  a  great  linguist!  Who  instructed  you  in  the 
noble  art  of  profanity?" 

"Huh?"  said  Jacky,  shyly. 

"Who  taught  you?" 

"Maw,"  said  Jacky. 

Maurice  roared;  Lily  giggled, — "My  soul  and  body! 
Listen  to  that  child!  Jacky,  you  naughty  boy,  telling 
wrong  stories.  One  of  these  days  I'm  going  to  give  you  a 
reg'lar  spanking."  Then  she  stamped  her  foot,  for  Jacky 
had  settled  down  again  in  the  dust;  "Do  you  hear  me? 
Come  right  in  out  of  the  dirt!  That's  one  on  me!"  she 
confessed,  laughing:  then  added,  anxiously:  "Say,  Mr. 
Curtis,  I  do  smack  him  when  he  says  bad  words;  honest, 
I  do !  He's  getting  a  good  bringing  up,  though  my  mealers 
spoil  him  something  awful.  But  I'd  just  shake  his  prayers 
out  of  him,  if  he  forgot  'em." 

Maurice,  still  laughing,  said:  "Well,  don't  become  too 
proficient,  Jacobus.  Good-by,"  he  said  again.  And  as  he 
said  it,  Eleanor,  in  a  trolley  car,  glanced  out  of  the  win- 
dow and  saw  him. 

"Why,  there's  Maurice!"  she  said;  and  motioned  to 
the  conductor  to  stop.  Hunting  for  a  cook  had  brought 
her  to  this  impossible  suburb,  where  Maurice,  no  doubt, 
was  trying  to  buy  or  sell  a  house.  "I'll  get  out  and  walk 
home  with  him,"  she  thought,  eagerly.  But  the  car  would 
not  stop  until  the  end  of  the  second  block,  and  when  she 
hurried  back  Mauiice  had  disappeared.  He  had  either 
gone  off  in  another  direction,  or  else  entered  the  house; 
but  she  could  not  remember  which  house! — those  ginger- 
bread tenements  were  all  so  much  alike  that  it  was  impos- 
sible to  be  sure  on  which  of  the  small  porches  she  had 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  211 

seen  her  husband,  and  a  fat,  common-looking  woman,  and 
a  child  playing  in  the  yard.  All  she  could  do  was  to  wander 
up  and  down  the  block,  looking  at  every  front  door  in 
the  hope  that  he  would  appear;  as  he  didn't,  she  finally 
took  the  next  car  into  town. 

"Did  you  sell  the  house  this  afternoon?"  she  asked 
Maurice  at  dinner  that  night;  and  he,  remembering  how 
part  of  his  afternoon  had  been  spent,  said  he  hadn't  any 
particular  house  on  the  string  at  the  moment. 

"Then  what  took  you  to  Medfield?"  Eleanor  asked, 
simply. 

"Medfield!" 

"I  saw  you  out  there  this  afternoon,"  she  said;  "you 
were  talking  to  a  woman.  I  supposed  she  was  a  tenant.  I 
got  off  the  car  to  walk  home  with  you,  but  I  wasn't  sure 
of  the  house;  they  were  all  alike." 

"What  were  you  doing  in  Medfield?" 

"Oh,  Hannah  has  given  notice;  I  was  hunting  for  a 
cook.  I  heard  of  one  out  on  Bell  Street." 

"Did  you  find  her?" 

"No,"  Eleanor  said,  sighing,  "it's  perfectly  awful!" 

"Too  bad!"  her  husband  sympathized. 

In  the  parlor,  after  dinner,  while  Eleanor  was  getting 
out  the  cards  for  solitaire,  Maurice,  tingling  with  alarm 
and  irritation,  sat  down  at  the  piano  and  banged  out  all 
sorts  of  chords  and  discords.  "Lily  '11  have  to  move,"  he 
was  saying  to  himself.  (Bang — Bang!)  His  imagination 
raced  with  the  possibilities  of  what  would  have  happened 
if  Eleanor  had  found  the  house  which  was  "like  all  the 
other  houses,"  and  heard  his  "good-by"  to  Lily,  or  per- 
haps even  caught  the  latest  addition  to  Jacky's  vocabu- 
lary !  "The  jig  would  have  been  up,"  he  thought.  (Bang — 
Crash!)  .  .  .  " She'll  have  to  move !  Suppose  Eleanor  took 
it  into  her  head  to  hunt  her  up?  She's  capable  of  it!" 
(Crash!) 

Eleanor's  absorption  in  the  cook  she  could  not  find  kept 
her  for  nearly  forty-eight  hours  from  speculation  as  to 
what,  if  not  office  business,  took  Maurice  to  Medfield. 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

When  she  did  begin  to  speculate  she  said  to  herself,  "He 
doesn't  tell  me  things  about  his  business!"  Then  she  was 
stabbed  again  by  his  annoyance  because  she  had  opened 
the  letter  from  Mr.  Houghton ;  then  by  his  secretiveness  in 
regard  to  that  adventure  on  the  river  with  Mrs.  Morton. 
(He  had  told  Edith !)  Then  this — then  that — and  by  and 
by  a  tiny  heap  of  nothings,  that  implied  reserves.  He 
wasn't  confidential.  She  told  him  everything!  She  never 
kept  a  thing  from  him!  And  he  didn't  even  tell  her  why 
he  was  over  in  Medfield  when  no  real-estate  matters  took 
him  there.  Why  should  he  not  tell  her?  And  when  she 
said  that,  the  inevitable  answer  came :  He  didn't  tell  her, 
because  he  didn't  want  her  to  know!  Perhaps  he  had 
friends  there?  No.  No  friends  of  Maurice's  could  live  in 
such  a  locality.  Well,  perhaps  there  was  some  woman? 
Even  as  she  said  this,  she  was  ashamed.  She  knew  she 
didn't  believe  it.  Of  course  there  wasn't  any  woman! 
.  .  .  But,  at  any  rate,  he  had  interests  in  Medfield  that 
he  did  not  tell  her  about.  She  hinted  this  to  him  at  break- 
fast the  next  morning.  She  had  not  meant  to  speak  of  it; 
she  knew  she  would  be  sorry  if  she  did.  Eleanor  was  in- 
capable of  analysis,  but  she  was,  in  her  pitiful  way,  aware 
that  jealousy,  when  articulate,  is  almost  always  vulgar — 
perhaps  because  the  decorums  of  breeding  (which  insist 
that,  for  the  sake  of  others,  one's  own  pain  must  be  hidden) 
are  not  propped  up  by  the  reserves  of  pride.  At  any  rate, 
she  was  not  often  publicly  bitter  to  Maurice.  This  time, 
however,  she  was. 

"Apparently,"  she  said,  "Maurice  has  acquaintances 
on  Maple  Street  whom  I  don't  know." 

"The  elite,"  Edith  remarked,  facetiously;  "his  lovely 
Mrs.  Dale  lives  there." 

Maurice's  start  was  perceptible. 

"Perhaps  it  was  Mrs.  Dale  you  went  to  see?"  Eleanor 
said. 

Maurice,  trained  in  these  years  of  furtiveness  to  self- 
control,  said,  "Does  she  live  on  Maple  Street,  Edith?" 

"I  guess  so.    The  time  I  rescued  her  little  boy  and  her 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  213 

flower  pot,  ages  ago,  she  was  going  into  a  house  on  Maple 
Street." 

"I  saw  Maurice  in  Medfield  on  Thursday,"  said  Eleanor; 
:  "and  he  doesn't  seem  to  want  to  say  what  he  was  doing 
there!" 

"I  am  perfectly  willing  to  tell  you  what  I  was  doing," 
he  retorted;  "I  went  from  our  office  to  see  the  woman 
who  rents  the  house." 

Eleanor's  slow  mind  accepted  this  entirely  true  and  suc- 
cessfully false  remark  with  only  the  wonder  of  wounded 
love.  "Why  didn't  he  say  that  at  first?"  she  thought; 
"why  does  he  hide  things  from  me?" 

Maurice,  however,  made  sure  of  that  "hiding."  Elea- 
nor's attack  upon  him  frightened  him  so  badly  that 
that  very  afternoon,  after  office  hours  (Eleanor  being 
safe  in  bed  with  a  headache),  he  went  to  see  Lily.  Her 
astonishment  at  another  visit  so  soon  was  obvious;  she 
was  still  further  astonished  when  he  told  her  why  he  had 
come.  He  hated  to  tell  her.  To  speak  of  Eleanor  offended 
his  taste — but  it  had  to  be  done.  So,  stammering,  he 
began — but  broke  off: 

"Send  that  child  away!" 

"Run  out  in  the  yard,  Sweety,"  Lily  commanded. 

"Won't,"  said  Jacky. 

"Clear  out!"  Maurice  said,  sharply,  and  Jacky  obeyed 
like  a  shot — but  paused  on  the  porch  to  turn  the  fero- 
ciously clanging  doorbell  round  and  round  and  round. 
"Well,"  Maurice  began,  "I'll  tell  you  what's  hap- 
pened. .  .  .  Lily!  Make  him  stop !" 

"Say,  now,  Jacky,  stop,"  Lily  called;  but  Jacky,  seized 
apparently  with  a  new  idea,  had  already  stopped,  and 
was  running  out  on  to  the  pavement. 

So  again  Maurice  began  his  story.  Lily's  instant  and 
sympathetic  understanding  was  very  reassuring.  He  even 
caught  himself,  under  the  comfort  of  her  quick  co-opera- 
tion, ranging  himself  with  her,  and  saying  "we."  "We've 
got  to  guard  against  anything  happening,  you  know." 

"Oh,  my  soul  and  body,  yes!"  Lily  agreed;  "it  would 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

be  too  bad,  and  no  sense,  either;  you  and  me  just  ac- 
quaintances. 'Course  I'll  move,  Mr.  Curtis.  But,  there! 
I  hate  to  leave  my  garden — and  I've  just  papered  this 
room!  And  I  don't  know  where  to  go,  either,"  she  ended, 
with  a  worried  look. 

"How  would  you  like  to  go  to  New  York?"  he  said, 
eagerly. 

She  shook  her  head:  "I've  got  a  lot  of  friends  in  this 
neighborhood.  But  there's  a  two-family  house  on  Ash 
Street—" 

"Say,"  said  Jacky,  in  the  hall;  "I  got—" 

"Oh,  but  you  must  leave  Medfield!"  he  protested; 
"she" — that  "she"  made  him  wince — "she  may  try  to 
hunt  you  up." 

"She  can't.   She  don't  know  my  name." 

Maurice  felt  as  if  privacy  were  being  pulled  away  from 
his  soul,  as  skin  might  be  flayed  from  living  flesh.  "But 
you  see,"  he  began,  huskily,  "there's  a — a  girl  who  lives 
with  us;  and  she — she  mentioned  your  name."  Then, 
cringing,  he  told  her  about  Edith. 

Lily  looked  blankly  puzzled;  then  she  remembered; 
"Why,  yes,  sure  enough!  It  was  right  at  the  gate — oh, 
as  much  as  four  years  ago;  I  slipped,  and  she  grabbed 
Jacky.  Yes;  it  comes  back  to  me;  she  told  me  she  seen 
me  the  time  we  got  ducked.  'Course,  I  gave  her  the 
glassy  eye,  and  said  I  didn't  remember  the  gentleman  in 
the  boat  with  her.  And  she  caught  on  that  I  lived  here? 
Well,  now,  ain't  the  world  small?" 

"Damned  small,"  Maurice  said,  dryly. 

"Say,"  said  Jacky,  from  the  doorway,  "I  got  a — " 

"Well,  she — I  mean  this  young  lady — told  my — ah, 
wife  that  you  lived  on  Maple  Street,  and — "  He  was 
stammering  with  angry  embarrassment;  Lily  gave  a 
cluck  of  dismay.  "Confound  it!"  said  Maurice;  "what 
'11  we  do?" 

"Now,  don't  you  worry!"  Lily  said,  cheerfully.  "If 
she  ever  speaks  to  me  again,  I'll  say,  'Why,  you  have  the 
advantage  of  me !' " 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  215 

Her  mincing  politeness  made  him  laugh,  in  spite  of  his 
irritation.  "I  think  you'd  like  it  in  New  York? "  he  urged. 

Lily's  amber  eyes  were  full  of  sympathy — but  she  was 
firm:  "I  wouldn't  live  in  New  York  for  anything!" 

"Mr.  Gem 'man,"  said  Jacky,  sidling  crabwise  into  tlie 
room  to  the  shelter  of  his  mother's  skirt;  "I — " 

"Say,  now,  Sweety,  be  quiet!  No,  Mr.  Curtis;  I  only 
go  into  real  good  society,  and  I've  always  heard  that  New 
York  ladies  ain't  what  they  should  be.  And,  besides,  I 
want  a  garden  for  Jacky.  I'll  tell  you  what  I'll  do!  I'll 
take  the  top  flat  in  that  house  on  Ash  Street.  It  has  three 
little  rooms  I  could  let.  There's  a  widow  lady's  been  ask- 
ing me  to  go  in  on  it  with  her;  it  has  a  garden  back  of  it 
Jacky  could  play  in — last  summer  there  was  a  reg'lar 
hedge  of  golden  glow  inside  the  fence!  Mr.  Curtis,  you'd 
'a'  laughed!  He  pinched  an  orange  off  a  hand-cart  yes- 
terday, just  as  cute !  'Course  I  gave  him  a  good  slap,  and 
paid  the  man ;  but  I  had  to  laugh,  he  was  so  smart.  And 
he's  got  going  now,  on  God — since  I've  been  paying  him 
to  say  his  prayers.  Well,  I  suppose  I'll  have  to  be  going 
to  church  one  of  these  days,"  she  said,  resignedly.  "The 
questions  he  asks  about  God  are  something  fierce!  7 
don't  know  how  to  answer  'em.  Crazy  to  know  what 
God  eats — I  told  him  bad  boys. " 

"Lily,  I  don't  think —  Thunder  and  guns!"  said 
Maurice,  leaping  to  his  feet  and  rubbing  his  ankle;  "Lily, 
call  him  off!  The  little  wretch  put  his  teeth  into  me!" 

Lily,  horrified,  slapped  her  son,  who  explained,  bawling, 
"Well,  b-b-but  he  didn't  let  on  he  heard  me  tellin'  him 
that  I—" 

"  I  felt  you,"  Maurice  said,  laughing;  "  Gosh,  Lily!  He's 
cut  his  eyeteeth — I'll  say  that  for  him!"  He  poked 
Jacky  with  the  toe  of  his  boot,  good-naturedly:  "Don't 
howl,  Jacobus.  Sorry  I  hurt  your  feelings.  Lily,  what  I 
was  going  to  say  was,  I  don't  believe  that  Ash  Street  place 
is  what  you  want?" 

"Yes,  it  is.  The  widow  lady  is  a  dressmaker,  and  she 
has  three  children.  We  were  talking  about  it  only  yes- 


2i6  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

terday.  Her  father's  feeble-minded,  poor  old  man!  I 
take  him  in  some  doughnuts  whenever  I  fry  'em.  Mr. 
Curtis,  don't  worry;  I'll  fix  it,  somehow!  And  until  I 
get  moved,  I  won't  answer  the  bell  here.  Look!  I'll  give 
you  a  key,  and  you  can  come  in  without  ringing  if  you 
want  to." 

"No — no!  I  don't  want  a  key!  I  wouldn't  take  a  key 
for  a  million  dollars!" 

Lily's  quick  flush  showed  how  innocent  her  offer  had 
been.  "I  suppose  that  doesn't  sound  very  high  toned — 
to  offer  a  gentleman  a  key?  But  I'll  tell  you!  I  ain't 
giving  any  door  keys  to  my  house.  Jacky  ain't  ever 
going  to  feel  funny  about  his  mother,"  she  said,  sharply. 

It  was  on  the  tip  of  Maurice's  tongue  to  say,  "Nor  about 
his  father!"  but  he  was  silent.  It  was  the  first  time  his 
mind  had  articulated  his  paternity,  and  the  mere  word 
made  him  dumb  with  disgust.  Lily,  however,  was  her 
kind  little  self  again,  full  of  promises  to  "clear  out,"  and 
reassurances  that  "she"  would  never  get  on  to  it. 

It  was  then  that  the  grimness  of  the  situation  for 
Maurice  lightened  for  a  ridiculous  moment.  Jacky,  breath- 
ing very  hard,  peered  from  behind  his  mother,  and 
stretched  out  to  Maurice  an  extremely  dirty,  tightly 
clenched  fist.  "I  got  a — a  pre-present  for  you,"  he 
explained,  panting.  Maurice,  in  a  great  hurry  to  get  away, 
paused  to  put  out  his  hand,  in  which  his  son  placed,  very 
gently,  a  slimy,  half-smoked  cigar.  "Found  it,"  Jacky 
said,  in  a  stertorous  whisper,  "in  the  gutter." 

It  was  impossible  not  to  laugh,  and  Maurice  swallowed 
his  impatience  long  enough  to  say,  "Jacobus,  you  over- 
whelm me!"  Then  he  took  his  departure,  holding  the  gift 
between  a  reluctant  thumb  and  ringer.  "Funny  little 
beggar,"  he  said  to  himself,  and  pitched  the  stub  into 
the  gutter  from  which  Jacky  had  salvaged  it;  he  didn't 
look  back  to  see  his  son  hanging  over  the  palings,  watch- 
ing the  fate  of  his  present  with  stricken  eyes.  ...  So  it 
was  that,  when  the  day  came  that  Eleanor  did  actually 
begin  to  search  for  what  was  hidden,  Maple  Street  was 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  217 

empty  of  possibilities;  Lily  had  flitted  away  into  the 
secrecy  of  the  two-family  house  on  Ash  Street. 

It  was  nearly  three  months  before  the  search  began. 
Edith  had  gone  home,  Mrs.  Newbolt  was  at  the  sea- 
shore, and  Maurice  was  in  and  out — away  for  two  or 
three  days  at  a  time  on  office  business,  and  when  at  home 
absent  almost  every  evening  with  some  of  those  youthful 
acquaintances  who  seemed  ignorant  of  Eleanor's  exist- 
ence. So  there  were  long  hours  when,  except  for  her  little 
old  dog,  she  was  entirely  alone — alone,  to  brood  over 
Maurice's  queer  look  when  she  had  accused  him  of  having 
an  "acquaintance  on  Maple  Street";  and  by  and  by  she 
said,  "I'll  find  out  who  it  is!"  Yet  she  had  moments  of 
trying  to  tear  from  her  mind  the  idea  of  any  concealment, 
because  the  mere  suspicion  was  an  insult  to  Maurice !  She 
had  occasional  high  moments  of  saying,  "I  won't  think  he 
has  secrets  from  me;  I'll  trust  him."  But  still,  because 
suspicion  is  the  diversion  of  an  empty  mind,  she  played 
with  it,  as  one  might  play  with  a  dagger,  careful  only  not 
to  let  it  touch  the  quick  of  belief.  After  a  while  she  de- 
luded herself  into  thinking  that,  to  exonerate  Maurice, 
she  must  prove  the  suspicion  false!  It  was  only  fair  to 
him  to  do  that.  So  she  must  find  the  woman  whom  she  had 
seen  on  the  porch  with  him.  If  she  wasn't  Mrs.  Dale,  that 
would  "prove"  that  everything  was  all  right,  and  that 
Maurice's  presence  there  only  meant  that  he  was  attending 
to  office  business;  nothing  to  be  jealous  about  in  that! 
And  if  the  woman  was  Mrs.  Dale?  Eleanor's  throat  con- 
tracted so  sharply  that  she  gasped.  But  again  and  again 
she  put  off  the  search  for  the  exonerating  proof — for  she 
was  ashamed  of  herself.  "I'll  do  it  to-morrow."  .  .  . 
"I'll  do  it  next  week." 

It  was  a  scorching,  windy  July  day  when  she  took  her 
first  defiling  step  and  "did  it."  There  had  been  a  break- 
fast-table discussion  of  a  vacation  at  Green  Hill,  the  usual 
invitation  having  been  received. 

"Do  go,"  Maurice  had  urged.  "I'll  do  what  I  did  last 
year — hang  around  here,  and  go  to  the  ball  games,  and 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

come  up  to  Green  Hill  for  Sundays."  He  was  acutely 
anxious  to  have  her  go. 

She  was  silent.  "Why  does  he  want  to  be  alone?"  she 
thought;  "why — unless  he  goes  over  to  Medfield ? "  Then, 
in  sudden  decision,  she  said  to  herself,  "I  will  find  out 
why,  to-day!"  But  she  was  afraid  that  Maurice  would, 
somehow,  guess  what  she  was  going  to  do;  so,  to  throw 
him  quite  off  the  track,  she  told  him  that  Donny  O'Brien 
was  sick  again;  "I  must  go  and  see  him  this  morning," 
she  said. 

Maurice,  reading  the  sports  page  of  the  morning  paper, 
said,  "Too  bad ! "  and  went  on  reading.  He  had  no  interest 
in  his  wife's  movements;  the  two-family  house  on  Ash 
Street  was  beyond  her  range! 

An  hour  later,  Eleanor,  giving  Bingo  a  cooky  to  console 
him  for  being  left  at  home,  started  out  into  the  blazing 
heat,  saying  to  herself:  "I'll  recognize  her  the  minute  I 
see  her.  Of  course  I  know  she  isn't  the  Dale  woman,  but 
I  want  to  prove  that  she  isn't!" 

Her  plan  was  to  ring  the  bell  at  every  one  of  the  ginger- 
bread houses  on  that  block  on  Maple  Street,  and  ask  if 
Mrs.  Dale  lived  there?  If  she  was  not  to  be  found,  that 
would  prove  that  Maurice  had  not  gone  to  see  her.  If 
she  was  found,  why,  then — well,  then  Eleanor  would  say 
that  she  had  heard  that  the  house  was  in  the  market? 
If  Mrs.  Dale  said  it  was  not,  that  would  show  that  it 
wasn't  "office  business"  which  had  brought  Maurice  to 
that  porch! 

On  Maple  Street  the  heat  blazed  up  from  the  untidy 
pavement,  and  a  harsh  wind  was  whirling  little  spirals  of 
dust  up  and  down  the  dry  gutter.  Eleanor's  heart  was 
beating  so  smotheringly  that  when  her  first  ring  was 
answered  she  could  scarcely  speak:  "Does  Mrs.  Dale 
live  here?" 

"No,"  said  the  girl  who  opened  the  door,  "there 
ain't  nobody  by  that  name  livin'  here." 

And  at  the  next  door:  "Mrs.  Dale?  No.  This  is  Mrs. 
Mahoney's  house." 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  219 

It  was  at  the  sixth  house,  where  some  dusty  pansies 
were  drying  up  under  the  little  bay  window,  that  a  woman 
whose  red,  soapy  hands  had  just  left  the  wash  tub,  said: 

"Some  folks  with  that  name  lived  here  before  I  took 
the  house.  But  they  moved  away.  She  was  real  nice ;  used 
to  give  candy  to  the  children  round  here.  She  was  a  widow 
lady.  She  told  me  her  husband's  name  was  Joseph.  Was 
it  her  you  was  looking  for?" 

"I  don't  know  her  husband's  name,"  Eleanor  said. 

"Her  baby  had  measles  when  mine  did,"  the  woman 
went  on;  "I  lived  across  the  street,  then.  But  I  took  a 
fancy  to  the  house,  because  she'd  papered  the  parlor  so 
handsome,  so  I  moved  in  the  first  of  May,  when  she  got 
out." 

A  little  cold,  prickling  thrill  ran  down  Eleanor's  back. 
She  had  told  herself  that  "Maurice  had  a  secret";  but 
she  had  not  really  believed  that  the  secret  was  about 
Mrs.  Dale.  She  had  been  sure,  in  the  bottom  of  her  heart, 
that  she  would  be  able  to  "prove"  that  the  woman  he 
had  been  talking  to  that  day  was  not  Mrs.  Dale. 

Now,  she  had  proved — that  she  was. 

Eleanor  swayed  a  little,  and  put  her  hand  out  to  clutch 
at  the  porch  railing.  The  woman  exclaimed: 

"Come  in  and  sit  down!   I'll  get  you  a  glass  of  water." 

Eleanor  followed  her  into  the  kitchen  and  sat  down  on 
a  wooden  chair.  She  was  silent,  but  she  whitened  slowly. 
The  mistress  of  the  house,  scared  at  her  pallor,  ran  to  draw 
a  tumbler  of  water  from  the  faucet  in  the  sink;  she  held 
it  to  Eleanor's  lips,  apologizing  for  her  wet  hands: 

"I  was  tryin'  to  get  my  wash  out.  .  .  .  Where  do  you 
feel  bad?" 

"It's  so  hot,  that's  all,"  Eleanor  said,  faintly:  "I— 
I'm  not  ill — thank  you  very  much."  She  tried  to  smile, 
but  the  ruthless  glare  of  sunshine  through  the  open  kitchen 
door  showed  her  face  strained,  as  if  in  physical  suffering. 

"I'm  awfully  sorry  I  can't  tell  you  where  Mrs.  Dale 
lives,"  the  woman  said,  sympathetically.  "Was  she  a 

friend  of  yours?"   Eleanor  shook  her  head.    "There!   I'll 
15 


22o  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

tell  you  who  maybe  could  tell  you — the  doctor.  He  took 
care  of  her  baby.  Doctor  Nelson — " 

"Nelson!" 

"He's  the  hospital  doctor  now.  Why  don't  you  ask 
him?" 

"Thank  you,"  said  Eleanor  vaguely.  She  rose,  saying 
she  felt  better  and  was  much  obliged.  Then  she  went  out 
on  to  the  porch,  and  down  the  broken  steps  to  the  windy, 
scorching  street. 

She  was  certain:  Maurice  had  gone  to  Medfield  to  see 
Mrs.  Dale.  .  .  . 

Why? 

She  was  quite  calm,  so  calm  that  she  found  herself 
thinking  that  she  had  forgotten  to  get  an  yeast  cake  for 
Mary.  "I'll  get  it  as  I  go  home,"  she  thought.  But  as 
she  stood  waiting  for  the  car  it  occurred  to  her  that  she 
had  better  think  things  out  before  she  went  home.  Better 
not  see  Maurice  until  she  had  decided  just  how  she  should 
tell  him  that  there  was  no  use  having  secrets  from  her! 
That  she  knew  he  was  seeing  Mrs.  Dale!  Then  he  would 
have  to  tell  her  why  he  was  seeing  her.  .  .  .  There  could  be 
only  one  reason.  .  .  .  For  a  moment  she  was  suffocated  by 
that  "reason"!  She  let  the  returning  car  pass,  and 
signaled  the  one  going  out  into  the  country;  she  would 
go,  she  told  herself,  to  the  end  of  the  route,  and  by  that 
time  she  would  know  what  to  do.  The  car  was  crowded, 
but  a  kindly  faced  young  woman  rose  and  offered  her 
a  seat.  Eleanor  declined  it,  although  her  knees  were 
trembling. 

"Oh,  do  take  it!"  the  woman  urged,  pleasantly,  and 
Eleanor  could  not  resist  sinking  into  it. 

"You  are  very  kind,"  she  said,  smiling  faintly. 

The  woman  smiled,  too,  and  said,  "Well,  I  always 
think  what  I'd  like  anyone  to  do  for  my  mother,  if  she 
couldn't  get  a  seat  in  a  car !  I  guess  you're  about  her  age." 

Eleanor  hardly  heard  her;  she  sat  staring  out  of  the 
window — staring  at  that  same  landscape  on  which  she 
and  Maurice  had  gazed_in  the  unseeing  ecstasy  of  their 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  221 

fifty-four  minutes  of  married  life!  "He  said  we  would 
come  back  in  fifty  years — not  by  ourselves."  As  she  said 
that,  a  thought  stabbed  her!  There  was  a  child  that  day, 
in  the  yard! 

When  she  saw  that  the  car  was  approaching  the  end  of 
the  route,  she  thought  of  the  locust  tree,  and  the  blossom- 
ing grass,  and  the  whispering  river.  "I'll  go  there,  and 
think,"  she  said. 

"All  out ! "  said  the  conductor;  and  she  rose  and  walked, 
stumbling  once  or  twice,  and  with  one  hand  outstretched, 
as  if — in  the  dazzling  July  day — she  had  to  feel  her  way 
in  an  enveloping  darkness.  She  went  down  the  country 
road,  where  the  bordering  weeds  were  white  with  dust, 
toward  that  field  of  young  love,  and  clover,  and  blue  sky. 

When  she  reached  the  river,  curving  around  the  meadow, 
brown  and  shallow  in  the  midsummer  droughts,  she  saw 
that  the  big  locust  was  long  past  blossoming,  but  some 
elderberry  bushes,  in  full  bloom,  made  the  air  heavy  with 
acrid  perfume;  the  grass,  starred  by  daisies,  and  with  here 
and  there  a  clump  of  black-eyed  Susans,  was  ready  for 
mowing,  and  was  tugging  at  its  anchoring  roots,  blowing, 
and  bending,  and  rippling  in  the  wind,  just  as  it  had  that 
other  day!  .  .  .  "And  I  sat  right  here,  by  the  tree,"  she 
said,  "and  he  lay  there — I  remember  the  exact  place. 
And  he  took  my  hand — " 

Her  mind  whirled  like  a  merry-go-round :  "Well,  I  knew 
he  was  hiding  something.  I  wish  I  had  seen  Doctor  Nel- 
son, and  asked  him  where  she  lives.  I  wonder  if  he's  the 
Mortons'  friend?  ...  If  I  don't  get  that  yeast  cake  to 
Mary  before  lunch,  she  can't  set  the  rolls.  .  .  .  Edith 
saw  her  with  a  child  five  years  ago.  Why" — her  mind 
stumbled  still  farther  back — "why,  the  very  day  Edith 
arrived  in  Mercer,  Maurice  had  been  looking  at  some 
house  in  Medfield,  where  the  tenant  had  a  sick  child. 
That  was  why  he  was  late  in  meeting  Mrs.  Houghton! 
. . .  The  child  had  measles.  I  wish  I  had  gone  to  see  Doctor 
Nelson!  Then  I  would  have  known.  ...  I  can  get  some 
rolls  at  the  bakery,  and  Mary  needn't  set  them  for  dinner. 


222  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

I  sang  ' O  Spring.' "  She  put  her  hands  over  her  face,  but 
there  were  no  tears.  "He  kissed  the  earth,  he  was  so 
happy.  When  did  he  stop  being  happy  ?  What  made  him 
stop?  ...  I  wonder  if  there  are  any  snakes  here? — Oh,  I 
must  think  what  to  do!"  Again  her  mind  flew  off  at  so 
violent  a  tangent  that  she  felt  dizzy.  "I  didn't  tell  Mary 
what  to  have  for  dinner.  .  .  .  He  gave  her  his  coat,  that 
time  when  the  boat  upset.  .  .  .  She  was  all  painted,  he  said 
so."  She  picked  three  strands  of  grass  and  began  to  braid 
them  together:  "He  did  that;  he  made  the  ring,  and  put 
it  over  my  wedding  ring."  Mechanically  she  opened  her 
pocketbook,  and  took  out  the  little  envelope,  shabby  now, 
with  years  of  being  carried  there.  She  lifted  the  flap,  and 
looked  at  the  crumbling  circle.  Then  she  put  it  back 
again,  carefully,  and  went  on  with  her  toilsome  thinking: 
"I'll  tell  him  I  know  that  he  went  to  see  the  Dale  woman. 
.  .  ..  He  said  we  had  been  married  fifty-four  minutes.  It's 
eight  years  and  one  month.  He  thinks  I'm  old.  Well,  I 
am.  That  woman  in  the  car  thought  I  was  her  mother's 
age,  and  she  must  have  been  thirty !  Why  did  he  stop  lov- 
ing me  ?  He  hates  Mary's  cooking.  He  said  Edith  could 
make  soup  out  of  a  paving  stone  and  a  blade  of  grass. 
Edith  is  rude  to  me  about  music,  and  he  doesn't  mind! 
How  vulgar  girls  are,  nowadays.  Oh — I  hate  her!  .  .  . 
Mary  '11  give  notice  if  I  say  anything  about  her  soup." 

Suddenly  through  this  welter  of  anger  and  despair  a 
small,  confused  thought  struggled  up ;  it  was  so  unexpected 
that  she  actually  gasped:  He  hadn't  quite  lied  to  her! 
"There  was  office  business!"  Some  real-estate  transfer 
must  have  been  put  through,  because — "Mrs.  Dale  had 
moved"!  In  her  relief,  Eleanor  burst  into  violent  crying; 
he  had  not  entirely  lied!  To  be  sure,  he  didn't  say  that 
the  woman  whom  he  had  gone  "from  the  office"  to  see, 
the  woman  who  rented  the  house,  was  Mrs.  Dale;  in 
that,  he  had  not  been  frank;  he  kept  the  name  back — 
but  that  was  only  a  reserve!  Only  a  harmless  secrecy. 
There  was  nothing  wrong  in  renting  a  house  to  the  Dale 
woman !  As  Eleanor  said  this  to  herself,  it  was  as  if  cool 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  223 

water  flowed  over  flame-licked  flesh.  Yes;  he  didn't  talk 
to  her  as  he  did  to  Edith  of  business  matters;  he  didn't 
tell  her  about  real-estate  transactions;  but  that  didn't 
mean  that  the  Dale  woman  was  anything  to  him !  She  was 
crying  hard,  now;  "He  just  isn't  frank,  that's  all."  She 
could  bear  that;  it  was  cruel,  but  she  could  bear  it!  And 
it  was  a  protection  to  Maurice,  too;  it  saved  him  from 
the  slur  of  being  suspected.  "Oh,  I  am  ashamed  to  have 
suspected  him!"  she  thought;  "how  dreadful  in  me!  But 
I've  proved  that  I  was  wrong."  When  she  said  that  she 
knew,  in  a  numb  way,  that  after  this  she  must  not  play 
with  the  dagger  of  an  unbelieved  suspicion.  She  recog- 
nized that  this  sort  of  thing  may  be  a  mental  diversion — 
but  it  is  dangerous.  If  she  allowed  herself  to  do  it  again, 
she  might  really  be  stabbed;  she  might  lose  the  saving 
certainty  that  he  had  not  lied  to  her — that  he  had  only 
been  "not  frank." 

Suddenly  she  remembered  how  unwilling  he  had  been, 
years  ago,  to  talk  of  the  creature  to  her!  She  smiled 
faintly  at  his  foolishness.  Perhaps  he  didn't  want  to 
talk  of  her  now?  Men  are  so  absurd  about  their  wives! 
Her  heart  thrilled  at  such  precious  absurdity.  As  for  see- 
ing that  doctor — of  course  she  wouldn't  see  him!"  She 
didn't  need  to  see  him.  And,  anyhow,  she  wouldn't,  for 
anything  in  the  world,  have  him,  or  anybody  else,  suppose 
that  she  had  had  even  a  thought  that  Maurice  wasn't — 
all  right!  "He  just  wasn't  quite  frank;  that  was  all." 
.  .  .  Oh,  she  had  been  wicked  to  suspect  him!  "He  would 
never  forgive  me  if  he  knew  I  had  thought  of  such  a  thing. 
He  must  never  know  it." 

In  the  comfort  of  her  own  remorse,  and  the  reassurance 
of  his  half  frankness,  she  walked  back  to  the  station  and 
waited,  in  the  midday  heat,  for  the  returning  car.  Her 
head  had  begun  to  ache,  but  she  said  to  herself  that  she 
must  not  disappoint  little  Donny.  So  she  went,  in  the 
blazing  sun,  to  the  old  washerwoman's  house,  climbed 
three  flights  of  stairs,  and  found  the  boy  in  bed,  flushed 
with  worry  for  fear  "Miss  Eleanor"  wasn't  coming.  She 


224  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

took  the  little  feeble  body  in  her  arms,  and  sat  down  in 
the  steamy  kitchen  by  an  open  window,  where  Donny 
could  see,  on  the  clothes  lines  that  stretched  like  gigantic 
spiderwebs  across  a  narrow  courtyard,  shirts  and  drawers, 
flapping  and  kicking  and  bellying  in  the  high,  hot  wind. 
She  talked  to  him,  and  said  that  if  his  grandmother  would 
hire  a  piano,  she  would  give  him  music  lessons; — and  all 
the  while  her  sore  mind  was  wondering  how  old  the  mother 
of  that  woman  in  the  car  was  ?  Then  she  sang  to  Donny — 
little  merry,  silly  songs  that  made  him  smile: 

"The  King  of  France, 
And  forty  thousand  men, 
Marched  up  a  hill — " 

She  stopped  short;  Edith  had  thrown  "The  King  of 
France"  at  her,  that  day  of  the  picnic,  when  she  had 
cringed  away  from  the  water  and  the  slimy  stones,  and 
climbed  up  on  the  bank  where  she  had  been  told  to 
"guard  the  girl's  shoes  and  stockings"!  "Oh,  I'll  be  so 
glad  to  get  her  and  her  '  brains '  out  of  the  house ! ' '  Eleanor 
thought.  But  her  voice,  lovely  still,  though  fraying  with 
the  years — went  on: 

"Marched  up  a  hill — 
And 
then 
marched 
down 
again!  " 

When,  with  a  splitting  headache,  she  toiled  home 
through  the  heat,  she  said  to  herself:  "He  ought  to  have 
been  frank,  and  told  me  the  woman  was  Mrs.  Dale;  I 
wouldn't  have  minded,  for  I  know  such  a  person  couldn't 
have  interested  him.  She  had  no  figure,  and  she  looked 
stupid.  He  couldn't  have  said  she  had  'brains'!  That 
girl  in  the  car  was  impertinent." 


CHAPTER  XXI 

heat  and  the  wind — and  remorse — gave  Eleanor 
1  such  a  prolonged  headache  that  Maurice,  in  real  anxiety 
and  without  consulting  her — wrote  to  Mrs.  Houghton  that 
"Nelly  was  awfully  used  up  by  the  hot  weather,"  and 
might  he  bring  her  to  Green  Hill  now,  instead  of  later? 
Her  prompt  and  friendly  telegram,  "Come  at  once"  made 
him  tell  his  wife  that  he  was  going  to  pack  her  off  to  the 
mountains,  quick! 

She  began  to  say  no,  she  couldn't  manage  it;  "I — I 
can't  leave  Bingo"  (she  was  hunting  for  an  excuse  not 
to  leave  Maurice),  "Bingo  is  so  miserable  if  I  am  out  of 
his  sight." 

"You  can  take  him, — old  Rover's  gone  to  heaven. 
Think  you  can  start  to-morrow?"  He  sat  down  beside 
her  and  took  her  hand  in  his  warm  young  paw;  the  pity 
of  her  made  him  frown — pity,  and  an  intolerable  annoy- 
ance at  himself !  She,  a  woman  twice  his  age,  had  married 
him,  when,  of  course,  she  ought  to  have  told  him  not  to 
be  a  little  fool;  ".  .  .  wiped  my  nose  and  sent  me  home!" 
he  thought,  with  cynical  humor.  But,  all  the  same,  she 
loved  him.  And  he  had  played  her  a  damned  cheap  trick! 
— which  was  hidden  safely  away  in  the  two-family  house 
on  Ash  Street.  "Hidden."  What  a  detestable  word! 
It  flashed  into  Maurice's  mind  that  if,  that  night  among 
the  stars,  he  had  made  a  clean  breast  of  it  all  to  Eleanor, 
he  wouldn't  now  be  going  through  this  business  of  hiding 
things — and  covering  them^up  by  innumerable,  squalid 
little  falsenesses.  "There  would  have  been  a  bust-up,  and 
she  might  have  left  me.  But  that  would  have  been  the 
end  of  it!"  he  thought;  he  would  have  been  free  from 


226  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

what  he  had  once  compared  to  a  dead  hen  tied  around  a 
dog's  neck — the  clinging  corruption  of  a  lie!  The  Truth 
would  have  made  him  free.  Aloud,  he  said,  "Star," — 
she  caught  her  breath  at  the  old  lovely  word — "I'll  go  to 
Green  Hill  with  you,  and  take  care  of  you  for  a  few  days; 
I'm  sure  I  can  fix  it  up  at  the  office." 

The  tears  leaped  to  her  eyes.  "Oh,  Maurice ! "  she  said ; 
"I  haven't  been  nice  to  you.  I'm  afraid  I'm — rather 
temperamental.  I — I  get  to  fancying  things.  One  day 
last  week  I — had  horrid  thoughts  about  you." 

"About  me?"  he  said,  laughing;  "well,  no  doubt  I 
deserved  'em!" 

"No!"  she  said,  passionately;  "no — you  didn't!  I 
know  you  didn't.  B^t  I — "  With  the  melody  of  that  old 
name  in  her  ears,  ner  thoughts  were  too  shameful  to  be 
confessed.  She  wouldn't  tell  him  how  she  had  wronged 
him  in  her  mind;  she  would  just  say:  "Don't  keep  things 
from  me,  darling!  Be  frank  with  me,  Maurice.  And — " 
she  stopped  and  tried  to  laugh,  but  her  mournful  eyes 
dredged  his  to  find  an  indorsement  of  her  own  certainties — 
"and  tell  me  you  don't  love  anybody  else?" 

She  held  her  breath  for  his  answer: 

"You  bet  I  don't!" 

The  humor  of  such  a  question  almost  made  him  laugh. 
In  his  own  mind  he  was  saying,  "Lily,  and  Love?  Good 
Lord!" 

Eleanor,  putting  her  hand  on  his,  said,  in  a  whisper, 
"But  we  have  no  children.  Do  you  mind — very  much?" 

"Great  Scott!  no.  Don't  worry  about  that.  That's 
the  last  thing  I  think  of!  Now,  when  do  you  think  you 
can  start?"  He  spoke  with  wearied  but  determined 
gentleness. 

She  did  not  detect  the  weariness, — the  gentleness  made 
her  so  happy;  he  called  her  "Star"!  He  said  he  didn't 
love  anyone  else!  He  said  he  didn't  mind  because  they 
had  no  children.  .  .  .  Oh,  how  dreadful  for  her  to  have 
had  those  shameful  fears — and  out  in  "their  meadow," 
too!  It  was  sacrilege.  .  .  .  Aloud,  she  said  she  could  be 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  227 

ready  by  the  first  of  the  week;  "And  you'll  stay  with  me? 
Can't  you  take  two  weeks?"  she  entreated. 

"Oh,  I  can't  afford  that"  he  said;  "but  I  guess  I  can 
manage  one."  .  .  . 

Later  that  day,  when  she  told  Mrs.  Newbolt — who  had 
come  home  for  a  fortnight — what  Maurice  had  planned 
for  her,  Eleanor's  happiness  ebbed  a  little  in  the  realiza- 
tion that  he  would  be  in  town  all  by  himself,  "for  a  whole 
week!  He'll  go  off  with  the  Mortons,  I  suppose,"  she  said, 
uneasily. 

"Well,"  said  Mrs.  Newbolt,  with  what  was,  for  her; 
astonishing  brevity,  "why  shouldn't  he?  Don't  forget 
what  my  dear  father  said  about  cats:  'Open  the  door!* 
Tell  Maurice  you  want  him  to  go  off  with  the  Mortons!" 

Of  course  Eleanor  told  him  nothing  of  the  sort.  But 
she  was  obliged,  at  Green  Hill,  to  watch  him  "going  off" 
with  Edith.  "I  should  think,"  she  said  once,  "that 
Mrs.  Houghton  wouldn't  want  her  to  be  wandering  about 
with  you,  alone." 

"Perhaps  Mrs.  Houghton  doesn't  consider  me  a  des- 
perate character,"  he  said,  dryly;  "and,  besides,  Johnny 
Bennett  chaperones  us!" 

Sometimes  not  even  John's  presence  satisfied  Eleanor, 
and  she  chaperoned  her  husband  herself.  She  did  it  very 
openly  one  day  toward  the  end  of  Maurice's  little  vaca- 
tion. Henry  Houghton  had  said,  "Look  here;  you  boys" 
(of  course  Johnny  was  hanging  around)  "must  earn  your 
salt !  We've  got  to  get  the  second  mowing  in  before  night. 
I'll  present  you  both  with  a  pitchfork." 

To  which  Maurice  replied,  "Bully!" 

"Me,  too!"  said  Edith. 

And  John  said,  "I'll  be  glad  to  be  of  any  assistance, 
sir." 

("How  their  answers  sum  those  youngsters  up!"  Mr.1; 
Houghton  told  his  Mary.) 

Eleanor,  dogging  Maurice  to  a  deserted  spot  on  the 
porch,  said,  uneasily,  "Don't  do  it,  darling;  it's  too  hot 
for  you," 


228  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

But  he  only  laughed,  and  started  off  with  the  other 
two  to  work  all  morning  in  the  splendid  heat  and  dazzle 
of  the  field.  "Skeezics,  don't  be  so  strenuous!"  he  com- 
manded, once;  and  Johnny  was  really  nervous: 

"It's  too  hot  for  you,  Buster." 

"Too  hot  for  your  grandmother!"  Edith  said — bare- 
armed,  open-throated,  her  creamy  neck  reddening  with 
sunburn. 

Toward  noon,  Maurice's  chaperon,  toiling  out  across 
the  hot  stubble  to  watch  him,  called  from  under  an  um- 
brella, "Edith!  You'll  get  freckled." 

"When  I  begin  to  worry  about  my  complexion,  I'll  let 
you  know,"  Edith  retorted;  "Maurice,  your  biceps  are 
simply  great!" 

"How  she  flatters  him!"  Eleanor  thought;  "And  she 
knows  he  is  looking  at  her."  He  was!  Edith,  lifting  a 
forkful  of  hay,  throwing  the  weight  on  her  right  thigh  and 
straining  backward  with  upraised  arms,  her  big  hat  tum- 
bling over  one  ear,  and  the  sweat  making  her  hair  curl 
all  around  her  forehead,  was  something  any  man  would 
like  to  look  at !  No  man  would  want  to  look  at  Eleanor — 
a  tired,  dull,  jealous  woman,  whose  eyes  were  blinking 
from  the  glare  and  whose  face  sagged  with  elderly  fatigue. 
She  turned  silently  and  went  away.  "He  likes  to  be  with 
her — but  he  doesn't  say  so.  Oh,  if  he  would  only  be 
frank!"  Her  eyes  blurred,  but  she  would  not  let  the  tears 
come,  so  they  fell  backward  into  her  heart — which 
brimmed  with  them,  to  overflow,  after  a  while,  in  bitter 
words. 

Edith;  watching  the  retreating  figure,  never  guessing 
those  unshed  tears,  said,  despairingly,  to  herself,  "I  sup- 
pose I  ought  to  go  home  with  her?"  She  dropped  her 
pitchfork;  "I'll  come  back  after  dinner,  boys,"  she  said; 
"I  must  look  after  Eleanor  now." 

"Quitter!"  Maurice  jeered;  but  Johnny  said,  "I'm 
glad  she's  gone;  it's  too  much  for  a  girl."  His  eyes  fol- 
lowed her  as  she  went  running  over  the  field  to  catch  up 
with  Eleanor,  who,  on  the  way  back  to  the  house,  only 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  229 

spoke  once;  she  told  Edith  that  flattery  was  bad  taste 
(the  cup  overflowed!).  "Men  hate  flattery,"  she  said. 

"Hate  it?"  said  Edith,  "they  lap  it  up!" 

When  the  two  young  men  sat  down  under  an  oak  for 
their  noon  hour,  with  a  bucket  of  buttermilk  standing 
precariously  in  the  grass  beside  them,  John  said  again, 
anxiously,  "It  was  too  hot  for  her;  I  hope  she  won't 
have  a  headache." 

"She  always  has  headaches,"  Maurice  said,  carelessly. 

"What!"  said  Bennett,  alarmed;  "she's  never  said  a 
word  to  me  about  headaches." 

"Oh,  you  mean  Edith?  I  thought  you  meant  Eleanor. 
Edith  never  had  a  headache  in  her  life!  Some  girl, 
Johnny?" 

"Has  that  just  struck  you?"  said  John. 

Maurice  fished  some  grass  seeds  out  of  the  buttermilk, 
took  a  deep  draught  of  it,  and  looked  at  his  companion, 
lying  full  length  on  the  stubble  in  the  shadow  of  the  oak. 
It  came  to  him  with  a  curious  shock  that  Bennett  was  in 
love.  No  "calf  love"  this  time!  Just  a  young  man's  love 
for  a  young  woman — sound  and  natural,  and  beautiful, 
and  right.  ...  "I  wonder,"  Maurice  thought,  "does  she 
know  it?" 

It  seemed  as  if  Johnny,  puffing  at  his  pipe,  and  slapping 
a  mosquito  on  his  lean  brown  hand,  answered  his  thought : 

"Edith's  astonishingly  young.  She  doesn't  realize  that 
she's  grown  up."  There  was  a  pause;  "Or  that  I  have." 

Maurice  was  silent ;  he  suddenly  felt  old.  These  two — 
these  children ! — believing  in  love,  and  in  each  other,  were 
in  a  world  of  their  own;  a  world  which  knew  no  hidden 
household  in  the  purlieus  of  Mercer;  no  handsome,  men- 
acing, six-year-old  child;  no  faded,  jealous  woman,  over- 
flowing with  wearisome  caresses !  In  this  springtime  world 
was  Edith — vigorous,  and  sweet,  and  supremely  reason- 
able;— and  never  temperamental!  And  this  young  man, 
loving  her.  .  .  .  Maurice  turned  over  on  his  face  in 
the  grass;  but  he  did  not  kiss  the  earth's  "perfumed 
garment ";  he  bit  his  own  clenched  fist. 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

He  was  very  silent  for  the  rest  of  their  day  in  the  field; 
for  one  thing,  they  had  to  work  at  a  high  pitch,  for  there 
were  blue-black  clouds  in  the  west !  At  a  little  after  three 
Edith  came  out  again,  but  not  to  help. 

"I  had  to  put  on  my  glad  rags,"  she  said,  sadly,  "be- 
cause some  people  are  coming  to  tea.  I  hate  'em — I 
mean  the  rags." 

Maurice  stopped  long  enough  to  turn  and  look  at  her,- 
and  say,  "They're  mighty  pretty!"  And  so,  indeed,  they 
were — a  blue  organdie,  with  white  ribbons  around  the 
waist,  and  a  big  white  hat  with  a  pink  rose  in  a  knot  of 
black  velvet  on  the  brim.  "How's  Eleanor?"  he  said, 
beginning  to  skewer  a  bale  of  hay  on  to  his  pitchfork. 

"She's  afraid  there's  going  to  be  a  thunderstorm," 
Edith  said;  " that's  why  1  came  out  here.  She  wants  you, 
Maurice." 

"All  right,"  he  said,  briefly;  and  struck  his  fork  down 
in  the  earth.  "I've  got  to  go,  Johnny."  .  .  . 

To  do  one's  duty  without  love  is  doubtless  better 
than  to  fail  in  doing  one's  duty,  but  it  has  its  risks. 
Maurice's  heartless  "kindness"  to  his  wife  was  like  a 
desert  creeping  across  fertile  earth;  the  eager  generosity 
of  boyhood  had  long  ago  hardened  into  the  gray  aridity 
of  mere  endurance. 

Edith  turned  and  walked  back  with  him;  they  were 
both  silent  until  Maurice  said,  "You've  got  Johnny's 
scalp  all  right,  Skeezics." 

"Don't  be  silly!"  she  said;  her  annoyance  made  her 
look  so  mature  that  he  was  apologetic;  was  she  in  love 
with  the  cub?  He  was  suddenly  dismayed,  though  he 
could  not  have  said  why.  "I  don't  like  jokes  like  that," 
Edith  said. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  Edith.  I  somehow  forget  you're 
grown  up,"  he  said,  and  sighed. 

She  laughed.  "Eleanor  and  you  have  my  age  on  your 
minds!  Eleanor  informed  me  that  I  was  too  old  to  be 
rampaging  round  making  hay  with  you  two  boys !  And  she 
thinks  I  'flatter'  you,"  Edith  said,  grinning.  "I  trust 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  23  r 

I'm  not  injuring  your  immortal  soul,  Maurice,  and  making 
you  vain  of  your  muscle?" 

Instantly  he  was  angry.  Eleanor,  daring  to  interfere 
between  himself  and  Edith?  He  was  silent  for  the  rest  of 
the  walk  home;  and  he  was  still  silent  when  he  went  up 
to  his  wife's  room  and  found  her  lying  on  her  bed,  old 
Bingo  snoozing  beside  her — windows  closed,  shades  down. 

"Oh,  Maurice!"  she  said,  with  a  gasp  of  relief;  "I  was 
so  afraid  you  would  get  caught  in  a  thunderstorm!" 

"Don't  be  so  absurd!"  he  said. 

"I — I  love  you;  that's  why  I  am  'absurd,'"  she  said, 
piteously.  It  was  as  if  she  held  to  his  lips  the  cup  of  her 
heart,  brimming  with  those  unshed  tears, — but  is  there 
any  man  who  would  not  turn  away  from  a  cup  that  holds 
so  bitter  a  draught? 

Maurice  turned  away.  "  This  room  is  insufferably  hot ! " 
he  said.  He  let  a  window  curtain  roll  up  with  a  jerk,  and 
flung  open  a  window. 

She  was  silent. 

"I  wish,"  he  said,  "that  you'd  let  up  on  Edith.  You're 
always  criticizing  her.  I  don't  like  it." 

That  night  Johnny  Bennett,  somehow,  lured  Edith  out 
on  to  the  porch  to  say  good  night.  The  thunderstorm  had 
come  and  gone,  and  the  drenched  garden  was  heavy  with 
wet  fragrance. 

"Let's  sit  down,"  Johnny  said;  then,  beseechingly, 
"Edith,  don't  you  feel  a  little  differently  about  me, 
now?" 

"Oh,  Johnny,  dear!" 

"Just  a  little,  Edith?  You  don't  know  what  it  would 
mean  to  me,  just  to  hope?" 

"Johnny,  I  am  awfully  fond  of  you,  but — " 

"Well,  never  mind,"  he  said,  patiently,  "I'll  wait." 

He  went  down  the  steps,  hesitated,  and,  while  Edith 
was  still  squeezing  a  little  wet  ball  of  a  handkerchief 
against  her  eyes,  came  back. 

"Do  you  mind -if  I  ask  you  just  one  question,  Edith?" 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

"Of  course  not!  Only,  Johnny,  it  just  about  kills  me  to 
be — horrid  to  you." 

"Have  you  really  got  to  be  horrid?"  said  John  Bennett. 

"Johnny,  I  can't  help  it!" 

"Is  it  because  there's  any  other  fellow,  Edith?  That's 
the  question  I  wanted  to  ask  you." 

She  was  silent. 

"Edith,  I  really  think  I  have  a  right  to  know?" 

Still  she  didn't  speak. 

"Of  course,  if  there  is — " 

"There  isn't!"  she  broke  in.  ...  "Why,  Johnny, 
you're  the  best  friend  I  have.  No ;  there  isn't  anybody  else. 
The  honest  truth  is,  I  don't  believe  I'm  the  sort  of  girl 
that  gets  married.  I  can't  imagine  caring  for  anybody  as 
much  as  I  care  for  father  and  mother  and  Maurice.  I — 
I'm  not  sentimental,  Johnny,  a  bit.  I'm  awfully  fond  of 
you;  awfully!  You  come  next  to  Maurice.  But — but  not 
that  way.  That's  the  truth,  Johnny.  I'm  perfectly  straight 
with  you;  you  know  that?  And  you  won't  throw  me  over, 
will  you?  If  I  lost  you,  I  declare  I — I  don't  know  what 
I'd  do!  You  won't  give  me  up,  will  you?" 

John  Bennett  was  silent  for  a  long  minute;  then  he  said, 
"No,  Edith;  I'll  never  give  you  up,  dear."  And  he  went 
away  into  the  darkness. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

EDITH'S  flight  to  one  of  the  schoolhouses  was  not  the 
entire  release  that  Eleanor  expected. 

"Look  here,  Skeezics,"  Maurice  had  announced;  "you 
can't  turn  me  down  this  way!  You've  got  to  come  to 
supper  every  Sunday  night! — when  I'm  at  home.  Isn't 
that  so,  Nelly?" 

Eleanor  said,  bleakly:  "Why,  if  Edith  would  like  to, 
of  course.  But  I  shouldn't  think  she'd  care  to  come  in  to 
town  at  six,  and  rush  out  to  Medfield  right  after  supper." 

"I  don't  mind,"  Edith  said. 

"You  bet  she  won't  rush  off  right  after  supper ! "  Maurice 
said;  " I  won't  let  her.  And  if  she  doesn't  get  in  here  by 
three  o'clock,  I'll  know  the  reason  why!" 

So  Edith  came  in  every  Sunday  afternoon  at  three — and 
Eleanor  never  left  her  alone  with  Maurice  for  a  moment ! 
She  sat  and  watched  them;  saw  Edith's  unconcealed 
affection  for  Maurice,  saw  Maurice's  pleasure  in  Edith, 
saw  his  entire  forgetfulness  of  herself, — and  as  she  sat, 
silently,  watching,  watching,  jealousy  was  like  a  fire  in 
her  breast. 

However,  in  spite  of  Eleanor,  sitting  on  the  other  side 
of  the  fire,  in  bitter  silence,  those  Sunday  afternoons 
were  delightful  to  Edith.  She  and  Maurice  were  more 
serious  with  each  other  now.  His  feeling  about  her  was 
that  she  was  a  mighty  pretty  girl,  who  had  sense,  and 
who,  as  he  expressed  it,  "spoke  his  language."  Her  feeling 
about  him  was  a  frankly  expressed  appreciation  which 
Eleanor  called  "flattery."  She  had  an  eager  respect  for 
his  opinions,  based  on  admiration  for  what  she  called  to 
herself  his  hard-pan  goodness.  "How  he  keeps  civil  to 
Eleanor,  I  don't  know ! "  Edith  used  to  think.  Sometimes, 


234  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

watching  his  civility — his  patience,  his  kindness,  and 
especially  his  ability  to  hold  his  tongue  under  the  provo- 
cation of  some  laconic  and  foolish  criticism  from  Eleanor — 
Edith  felt  the  old  thrill  of  the  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  moment. 
Yes;  there  was  no  one  on  earth  like  Maurice!  Then  she 
thought,  contritely,  of  good  old  Johnny.  "If  I  hadn't 
known  Maurice,  I  might  have  liked  Johnny, "  she  thought; 
"he  is  a  lamb."  When  she  reflected  upon  Eleanor,  some- 
thing in  her  generous,  careless  young  heart  hardened: 
"She's  not  nice  to  Maurice!"  She  had  no  sympathy  for 
Eleanor.  Youth,  having  never  suffered,  is  brutally  un- 
sympathetic. Edith  had  known  nothing  but  love, — given 
and  received;  so  of  course  she  could  not  sympathize  with 
Eleanor!  i 

When  the  Sunday-night  suppers  were  over,  Eleanor  and 
Maurice  escorted  their  guest  back  to  Fern  Hill;  Edith 
always  said,  "  Don't  bother  to  go  home  with  me,  Eleanor ! " 
And  Maurice  always  said,  "I'll  look  after  the  tyke,  Nelly, 
you  needn't  go";  and  Eleanor  always  said,  "Oh,  I  don't 
mind."  Which  was,  of  course,  her  way  of  "locking  the 
door  "  to  keep  her  cat  from  a  roof  that  became  more  allur- 
ing with  every  bolt  and  bar  which  shut  him  from  it. 

On  these  trolley  rides  through  Medfield  Maurice  was 
apt  to  be  rather  silent,  and  he  had  a  nervous  way  of  look- 
ing toward  the  rear  platform  whenever  the  car  stopped 
to  take  on  a  passenger — "although,"  he  told  himself, 
"what  difference  would  it  make  if  Lily  did  get  on  board? 
She's  so  fat  now,  Edith  wouldn't  know  her.  And  as  for 
Lily,  she's  white.  She'd  play  up,  like  a  '  perfect  lady ' ! " 
i  He  was  quite  easy  about  Lily.  He  hadn't  seen  her  for 
more  than  a  year,  and  she  made  no  demands  on  him.  She 
was  living  in  the  two-family  house  on  Ash  Street,  with  the 
dressmaker  and  her  three  children  and  feeble-minded 
father,  in  the  lower  flat.  There  was  the  desired  back  yard 
for  Jacky,  where  a  thicket  of  golden  glow  lounged  against 
the  fence,  and  where,  under  stretching  clothes  lines,  a 
tiny  garden  overflowed  with  color  and  perfume.  Every 
day  little  Lily  would  leave  her  own  work  (which  wa 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  235 

heavy,  for  she  had  several  "mealers")  and  run  down- 
stairs to  help  Mrs.  Hayes  wash  and  dress  the  imbecile  old 
man.  And  she  kept  a  pot  of  hyacinths  blooming  on  his 
window  sill. 

Maurice  (with  grinding  economies)  sent  her  a  quarterly 
money  order,  and  felt  that  he  was,  as  he  expressed  it  to 
himself,  "square  with  the  game," — with  the  Lily-and- 
Jacky  game.  He  could  never  be  square  with  the  game  he 
played  with  Eleanor;  and  as  for  his  own  "game,"  his 
steadily  pursued  secretiveness  was  a  denial  of  his  own 
standards  which  permanently  crippled  his  self-respect. 
Though,  curiously  enough,  these  years  of  careful  lying  had 
made  him,  on  every  subject  except  those  connected  with 
the  household  in  Medfield,  of  a  most  scrupulous  truthful- 
ness. Indeed,  the  office  still  called  him  "G.  Washington." 

Jacky  was  six  that  winter — a  handsome,  spoiled  little 
boy.  He  looked  like  Maurice — the  same  friendly,  eager, 
very  bright  blue  eyes  and  the  same  shock  of  blond  hair. 
Lily's  ideas  of  discipline  were,  of  course,  ruining  him,  to 
which  fact  Maurice  was  entirely  indifferent;  his  feeling 
about  Jacky  was  nothing  but  a  sort  of  spiritual  nausea; 
Jacky  was  not  only  an  economic  nuisance,  but  he  had 
made  him  a  liar!  He  said  to  himself  that  of  course  he 
didn't  want  anything  to  happen  to  the  brat  ("that  would 
break  Lily's  heart!"),  but — 

Then  in  March,  something  did  happen  to  him.  It  was 
on  a  Sunday  that  the  child  came  down  with  scarlet  fever, 
and  Lily,  in  her  terror,  did  the  one  thing  that  she  had 
never  done,  and  that  Maurice,  in  his  certainty  of  her 
"whiteness,"  felt  sure  she  never  would  or  could  do:  she 
sent  a  telegram — to  his  house! 

It  had  been  a  cold,  sunny  day.  Just  before  luncheon 
Eleanor  had  been  summoned  to  Mrs.  O'Brien's:  "Donny 
is  kind  of  pining;  do  please  come  and  sing  to  him,  Miss 
Eleanor,"  the  worried  grandmother  wrote,  and  Eleanor 
hadn't  the  heart  to  refuse.  "I  suppose,"  she  thought, 
looking  at  Maurice  and  Edith,  "they'll  be  glad  to  get  rid 

of  me!"     They  were  squabbling  happily  as  to  whether 
16 


236  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

altruism  was  not  merely  a  form  of  selfishness ;  Edith  had 
flung,  "Idiot!"  at  Maurice;  and  Maurice  had  retorted,  "I 
never  expect  a  woman  to  reason!"  It  was  the  kind  of 
squabbling  which  is  the  hall  mark  of  friendship  and  humor, 
and  it  would  have  been  impossible  between  Eleanor  and 
her  husband.  .  .  .  She  left  them,  burning  with  impatience 
to  get  down  to  Mrs.  O'Brien's  and  back  again  in  the 
shortest  possible  time.  As  soon  as  she  was  out  of  the 
house  Maurice  disposed  of  altruism  by  a  brief  laying  down 
of  the  law: 

"There's  no  such  thing  as  disinterestedness.  You 
never  do  anything  for  anybody,  except  for  what  you  get 
out  of  it  for  yourself .  .  .  .  Let's  go  skating?" 

The  suggestion  was  not  the  result  of  premeditation; 
Maurice,  politely  opening  the  front  door  for  his  wife,  had 
realized,  as  he  stood  on  the  threshold  and  a  biting  wind 
flung  a  handful  of  powdery  snow  in  his  face, — the  spark- 
ling coldness  of  the  day;  and  he  thought  to  himself,  "this 
is  about  the  last  chance  for  skating !  There  '11  be  a  thaw 
next  week."  So,  when  he  came  back,  whistling,  to  the 
library,  he  said:  "Are  you  game  for  skating?  It's  cold  as 
blazes!" 

And  Edith  said:  "You  bet  I  am!  Only  we'll  have  to  go 
to  Fern  Hill  for  my  skates!" 

Maurice  said,  "All  right!"  and  off  they  went,  the  glow-* 
ing  vigor  and  youth  of  them  a  beauty  in  itself! 

So  it  was  that  when  Eleanor  got  home,  after  having 
gently  and  patiently  sung  to  poor  Donny  for  nearly  an 
hour,  the  library  was  empty;  but  a  note  on  the  mantel- 
piece said:  "We've  gone  skating. — E.  and  M."  "She 
waited  until  I  went  out,"  Eleanor  thought;  "  then  she  sug- 
gested it  to  him!"  She  sat  down,  huddling  over  the  fire, 
and  thinking  how  Maurice  neglected  her;  "He  doesn't 
want  me.  He  likes  to  go  off  with  Edith,  alone!"  They 
had  probably  gone  to  the  river — "our  river!" — that  broad 
part  just  below  the  meadow,  where  there  was  apt  to  be 
good  skating.  That  made  her  remember  the  September 
day  and  the  picnic,  when  Edith  had  talked  about  jealousy 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  237 

— "Bingoism,"  she  had  called  it.  "She  tried  to  attract 
him  by  being  smart.  I  detest  smartness!"  The  burning 
pain  under  her  breastbone  was  intolerable.  She  thought 
of  the  impertinent  things  Edith  had  said  that  day — and 
the  ridiculous  inference  that  if  the  person  of  whom  you 
were  jealous,  was  more  attractive  in  any  way  than  you 
were  yourself,  it  was  unreasonable  to  be  jealous; — "get 
busy,  and  be  attractive!"  Edith  had  said,  with  pert  shal- 
lowness.  "She  doesn't  know  what  she's  talking  about!" 
Eleanor  said;  and  jealousy  seared  her  mind  as  a  flame 
might  have  seared  her  flesh.  "I  haven't  skated  since  I 
was  a  girl.  .  .  .  I — I  believe  next  winter  I'll  take  it  up 
again."  The  tears  stood  in  her  eyes. 

It  was  at  that  moment  that  the  telegram  was  brought 
into  the  library. 

"Mr.  Curtis  isn't  in,"  Eleanor  told  the  maid;  then 
she  did  what  anyone  would  do,  in  the  absence  of  the  per- 
son to  whom  the  dispatch  was  addressed;  signed  for 
it ...  opened  it ...  read  it. 

Jacky's  sick;  please  come  over  quick. 

L.  D. 

"There's  no  answer,"  she  said.  When  the  maid  had 
left  the  room,  Maurice's  wife  moistened  the  flap  of  the 
flimsy  brown  envelope — it  had  been  caught  only  on  one 
side;  got  up,  went  into  the  hall,  laid  the  dispatch  on  the 
table,  came  back  to  the  library,  and  fainted  dead  away. 

No  one  heard  her  fall,  so  no  one  came  to  help  her — 
except  her  little  dog,  scrabbling  stiffly  out  of  his  basket, 
and  coming  to  crouch,  whining,  against  her  shoulder.  It 
was  only  a  minute  before  her  eyelids  flickered  open; — 
closed — opened  again.  After  a  while  she  tried  to  rise, 
clutching  with  one  hand  at  the  rung  of  a  chair,  and  with 
the  other  trying  to  prop  herself  up;  but  her  head  swam, 
and  she  sank  back.  She  lay  still  for  a  minute;  then  real- 
ized that  if  Maurice  came  in  and  found  her  there  on  the 
floor,  he  would  know  that  she  had  read  the  telegram.  .  .  . 


238  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

So  again  she  tried  to  pull  herself  up ;  caught  at  the  edge  of 
his  desk,  turned  sick,  saw  everything  black;  tried  again; 
then,  slowly,  the  room  whirling  about  her,  got  into  a  chair 
and  lay  back,  crumpled  up,  blindly  dizzy,  and  conscious  of 
only  one  thing:  she  must  get  upstairs  to  her  own  room 
before  Edith  and  Maurice  came  home!  She  didn't  know 
why  she  wanted  to  do  this ;  she  was  even  a  little  surprised 
at  herself,  as  she  had  been  surprised  when,  that  night  on 
the  mountain,  "to  save  Maurice,"  she  had,  instinctively, 
done  one  sensible  thing  after  another.  So  now  she  knew 
that,  when  he  came  home  with  Edith,  Maurice  must  be 
saved  "a  scene."  He  must  not  discover,  yet,  that  .  .  . 
she  knew. 

For  of  course  now,  it  was  knowledge,  not  suspicion: 
Maurice  was  summoned  to  see  a  sick  boy  called  Jacky; 
Jacky  was  the  child  of  L.  D. ;  and  L.  D.  was  the  Dale 
woman,  who  had  lived  in  the  house  on  Maple  Street. 
Her  shameful  suspicion  had  not  been  shameful!  It  had 
been  the  recognition  of  a  fact.  .  .  .  Clutching  at  support- 
ing chairs,  Eleanor,  somehow,  got  out  of  the  library ;  saw 
that  brown  envelope  in  the  hall,  stopped  (holding  with 
one  hand  to  the  table),  to  make  sure  it  was  sealed.  Bingo, 
following  her,  whimpered  to  be  lifted  and  carried  upstairs, 
but  she  didn't  notice  him.  She  just  clung  to  the  banisters 
and  toiled  up  to  her  room.  She  pushed  open  her  door  and 
looked  at  her  bed,  desiring  it  so  passionately  that  it  seemed 
to  her  she  couldn't  live  to  reach  it — to  fall  into  it,  as  one 
might  fall  into  the  grave,  enamored  with  death.  Down 
in  the  hall  the  little  dog  cried.  She  didn't  faint  again.  She 
just  lay  there,  without  feeling,  or  suffering.  After  a  while 
she  heard  the  front  door  open  and  close;  heard  Edith's 
voice:  "Hullo,  Eleanor!  Where  are  you?  We've  had  a 
bully  time!"  Heard  Maurice:  "Headache,  Nelly?  Too 
ba — "  Then  silence;  he  must  have  seen  the  envelope — 
picked  it  up — read  it.  ...  That  was  why  he  didn't  finish 
that  word — so  hideously  exact ! — ' '  bad. "  After  a  while  he 
came  tiptoeing  into  the  room. 

"Headache?    Sorry.    Anything  I  can  do?" 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  239 

"No." 

He  did  not  urge;  he  was  too  engrossed  in  the  shock  of 
an  escaped  catastrophe;  suppose  Eleanor  had  read  that 
dispatch!  Good  God!  Was  Lily  mad?  He  must  go  and 
see  her,  quick,  and  say —  He  grew  so  angry  as  he  thought 
of  what  he  was  going  to  say  that  he  did  not  hear  Edith's 
friendly  comments  on  "poor  dear  Eleanor." 

"Edith,"  he  said,  "that — that  dispatch:  I've  got  to  see 
somebody  on  business.  Awfully  sorry  to  take  you  out  to 
Fern  Hill  before  supper,  but  I'm  afraid  I've  got  to  rush 
off—" 

'"Course!  But  don't  bother  to  take  me  home.  I  can 
go  by  myself." 

"No.  It's  all  right.  I  have  time ;  but  I've  got  to  go  right 
off.  I  hate  to  drag  you  away  before  supper — " 

"That's  of  no  consequence!"  she  said,  but  she  gave 
Maurice  a  swift  look.  What  was  the  matter  with  him? 
His  forehead,  under  that  thatch  of  light  hair,  was  so  lined, 
and  his  lips  were  set  in  such  a  harsh  line,  that  he  looked  ac- 
tually old!  Edith  sobered  into  real  anxiety.  "I  wish,  "she 
said,  "that  you  wouldn't  go  out  to  Fern  Hill;  you'll  have 
to  come  all  the  way  back  to  town  for  your  appointment!" 

He  said,  "No:  the — the  appointment  is  on  that  side 
of  the  river."  On  the  trolley  there  was  no  more  conversa- 
tion than  there  might  have  been  if  Eleanor  had  been  pres- 
ent. At  Edith's  door  he  said,  "  'Night—" 

But  as  he  turned  away,  she  called  to  him,  "Maurice!" 
Then  ran  down  the  steps  and  put  her  hand  on  his  arm: 
"Maurice,  look  here;  is  there  anything  I  can  do?  You're 
bothered!" 

He  gave  a  grunt  of  laughter.  "To  be  exact,  Edith; 
I'm  damned  bothered.  I've  been  several  kinds  of  a  fool." 

"You  haven't!  And  it  wouldn't  make  any  difference 
if  you  had.  Maurice,  you're  a  perfect  lamb!  I  won't  have 
you  call  yourself  names!  Why" — her  eyes  were  passionate 
with  tenderness,  but  she  laughed — "I  used  to  call  you 
'Sir  Walter  Raleigh,'  you  know,  because  you're  great, 
simply  great!  Maurice,  I  bet  on  you  every  time!  Do  tell 


24o  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

me  what's  the  matter?  Maybe  I  can  help.  Father  says  I 
have  lots  of  sense." 

Maurice  shook  his  head.  "  You  do  have  sense !  I  wish 
I  had  half  as  much.  No,  Skeezics;  there's  nothing  any- 
body can  do.  I  pay  as  I  go.  But  you're  the  dearest  girl 
on  earth!" 

She  caught  at  his  hand,  flung  her  arm  around  his  shoul- 
der, and  kissed  him:  "  You  are  the  dearest  boy  on  earth ! " 
Before  he  could  get  his  breath  to  reply,  she  flew  into  the 
house — flew  upstairs — flew  into  her  own  room,  and  banged 
the  door  shut.  "Maurice  is  unhappy!"  she  said.  The  tears 
started,  and  she  stamped  her  foot.  "I  can't  bear  it!  Old 
darling  Maurice — what  makes  him  unhappy  ?  I  could  kill 
anybody  that  hurts  Maurice!"  She  began  to  take  off 
her  hat,  her  fingers  trembling — then  stopped  and  frowned : 
"I  believe  Eleanor's  been  nasty  to  him?  I'd  like  to  choke 
her!"  Suddenly  her  cheeks  burned;  she  stood  still,  and 
caught  her  lower  lip  between  her  teeth;  "I  don't  care! 
I'm  glad  I  did  it.  I — I'd  do  it  again!  .  .  .  Darling  old 
Maurice!" 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

WHEN  Jacky's  father — with  that  honest  young  kiss 
warm  upon  his  cheek — reached  the  little  "two- 
family"  house,  he  saw  the  red  sign  on  the  door:  Scarlet 
Fever. 

"He's  got  it,"  he  thought,  fiercely;  "but  why  in  hell 
did  she  send  for  me? — and  a  telegram! — to  the  house! 
She's  mad."  He  was  panting  with  anger  as  he  pressed  the 
button  at  Lily's  door;  I'll  tell  her  I'll  never  see  her  again, 
long  as  I  live!"  Furious  words  were  on  the  tip  of  his 
tongue;  then  she  opened  the  door,  and  he  was  dumb. 

"Oh,  Mr.  Curtis — don't — don't  let  them  take  Jacky! 
Oh,  Mr.  Curtis!"  She  flung  herself  upon  him,  sobbing 
frantically.  "  Don't  let  them—  I'll  kill  them  if  they  touch 
Jacky!  Oh,  my  soul  and  body!  He'll  die  if  they  take  him — 
I  won't  let  them  take  him —  "  She  was  shaking  and  stam- 
mering and  gasping.  "I  won't  have  him  touched.  .  .  . 
You  got  to  stop  them — " 

"Lily,  don't!   What's  the  matter?" 

"This  woman  downstairs  's  about  crazy,  because  she  has 
three  children.  I  hope  they  all  catch  it  and  die  and  go  to 
hell !  She's  shut  up  there  with  'em  in  her  flat.  She  won't 
put  her  nose  outside  the  door!  She  come  up  here  this 
morning,  and  saw  Jacky,  and  she  said  it  was  scarlet  fever. 
Seems  she  knew  what  it  was,  'cause  she  had  a  boy  die  of 
it — glad  he  did!  And  she  sent — the  slut! — a  complaint 
to  the  Board  of  Health — and  the  doctor,  he  come  this  after- 
noon, and  said  it  was !  And  he  said  he  was  going  to  take 
Jacky  to-night!" 

Her  voice  made  him  cringe;  her  yellow  tigress  eyes 
blazed  at  him;  he  had  known  that  Lily,  for  all  her  good 
humor,  had  occasional  sharp  gusts  of  temper,  little  squalls 


242  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

that  raced  over  summer  seas  of  kindliness!  But  he  had 
never  seen  this  Lily:  A  ferocious,  raucous  Lily,  madly 
maternal!  A  Lily  of  the  pavements.  .  .  .  "An' I  said  he 
wasn't  going  to  do  no  such  thing!  An'  I  said  I'd  stop  it : 
I  said  I'd  take  the  law  to  him;  I  said  I'd  get  Jacky's 
father:  I—" 

"Good  God!    Lily—" 

"Oh,  what  do  I  care  about  you?  I  ain't  goin*  to  kill 
Jacky  to  protect  you!  You  got  to  stop  them  taking  him ! ' ' 
She  clutched  his  arm  and  shook  it :  "I  never  asked  nothing 
of  you,  yet.  I  ask  it  now,  and  you'll  do  it,  or  I'll  tell 
everybody  in  town  that  he's  yours — "  Her  menacing 
voice  broke  and  failed,  but  her  lips  kept  moving;  those 
kind,  efficient  hands  of  hers,  clutching  at  him,  were  the 
claws  of  a  mother  beast.  Maurice  took  her  arm  and  guided 
her  into  the  little  parlor,  where  a  row  of  hyacinths  on 
the  window  sill  made  the  air  overpoweringly  sweet;  he 
sat  down  beside  her  on  the  sofa. 

"Get  steady,  Lily,  and  tell  me:  I'll  see  what  can  be 
done.  But  there's  to  be  no  father  business  about  it,  you 
understand?  I'm  just  a  'friend.' " 

So,  stammering  and  breaking  into  sobs  and  even  whis- 
pered screams,  and  more  outrageous  abuse  of  her  fellow 
tenant,  she  told  him:  It  was  scarlet  fever,  and  there  were 
children  in  the  house.  The  Board  of  Health,  "sicked  on 
by  that  damned  woman,"  said  that  Jacky  must  go  to  the 
hospital — to  the  contagious  ward.  "And  the  doctor  said 
he'd  be  better  off  there;  he  said  they  could  do  for  him 
better  than  me — me,  his  mother!  They're  going  to  send 
a  ambulance — I  telegraphed  you  at  four  o'clock — andiiere 
it  is  six!  You  must  have  got  it  by  five — why  didn't  you 
come?  Oh — my  God,  Jacky! "  Her  suffering  was  naked; 
shocking  to  witness!  It  made  Maurice  forget  his  own 
dismay. 

" I  was  out,"  he  began  to  explain,  "and — "  • 

But  she  went  on,  beads  of  foam  gathering  in  the  corners 
of  her  mouth:  "I  didn't  telephone,  for  fear  she'd  get  on 
to  it."  He  could  see  that  she  was  angry  at  her  own  con- 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  243 

sideration.  "I'd  ought  to  have  sent  for  you  when  he  come 
down  with  it!"  .  .  .  Where  had  he  been  all  this  time, 
anyway! — and  her  nearly  out  of  her  head  thinkin'  this 
rotten  woman  downstairs  was  sicking  the  Board  o'  Health 
on  to  her!  "And  look  how  I've  washed  her  father  for  her! 
I'll  spit  on  him  if — if — if  anything  happens  to  Jacky.  Yes, 
I  tell  you,  and  you  mind  what  I  say:  If  Jacky  dies,  I'll 
kill  her — my  soul  and  body,  I'll  kill  her  anyway!" 

"Lily,  get  steady.  I'll  fix  things  for  you.  I'll  go  to  the 
Board  of  Health  and  see  what  can  be  done;  just  as — as  a 
friend  of  yours,  you  understand." 

From  the  next  room  came  a  wailing  voice:  "Maw — " 

"Yes,  Sweety;  in  a  minute — "  She  grasped  Maurice's 
hand,  clung  to  it,  kissed  it.  "Mr.  Curtis,  I'll  never  make 
trouble  for  you  after  this!  Oh,  I'll  go  to  New  York,  and 
live  there,  if  you  want  me  to.  I'll  do  anything,  if  you  just 
make  'em  leave  Jacky!  (Yes,  darling  Sweety,  maw's 
coming.)  You'll  do  it?  Oh,  I  knew  you'd  do  it!"  She 
ran  out  of  the  room. 

.  He  got  up,  beside  himself  with  perplexity:  but  even  as 
he  tried  to  think  what  on  earth  he  could  do,  the  doctor 
came.  The  ambulance  would  arrive,  he  said,  with  Bored 
cheerfulness,  in  twenty  minutes.  Lily,  rushing  from 
Jacky 's  bedside,  flew  at  him  with  set  teeth,  her  trembling 
hands  gripping  the  white  sleeve  of  his  linen  jacket. 

"This  gentleman's  a  friend  of  mine,"  she  said,  jerking 
her  head  toward  Maurice;  "he  says  you  sJia'n't  carry 
Jacky  off!" 

The  doctor's  relief  at  having  a  man  to  talk  to  was  obvi- 
ous. And  while  Maurice  was  trying  to  get  in  a  word,  there 
came  another  whimper  from  the  room  where  Jacky  lay, 
red  and  blotched,  talking  brokenly  to  himself:  "Maw!" 
Lily  ran  to  him,  leaving  the  two  men  alone. 

"Thank  Heaven!"  the  doctor  said;  "I'd  about  as 
soon  argue  with  a  hornet  as  a  mother.  She's  nearly  crazy ! 
I'll  tell  you  the  situation."  He  told  it,  and  Maurice  lis- 
tened, frowning. 

"What  can  be  done?"  he  said;   "I — I  am  only  an  ac- 


244  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

quaintance;  I  hardly  know  Mrs.  Dale;  but  she  sent  for 
me.  She's  frantic  at  the  idea  of  the  boy  being  taken  away 
from  her." 

"He'll  have  to  be  taken  away!  Besides,  he'll  have  ten 
times  better  care  in  the  hospital  than  he  could  have  here." 

"Can  she  go  with  him?"  Maurice  said. 

"Why,  if  she  can  afford  to  take  a  private  room — " 

"Good  heavens!  money's  no  object;  anything  to  keep 
her  from  doing  some  wild  thing!" 

"You  a  relation?"  the  doctor  asked. 

"Not  the  slightest.    I — knew  her  husband." 

"The  thing  for  you  to  do,"  said  the  doctor,  "is  to  hustle 
right  out  to  a  telephone;  call  up  the  hospital.  Get  Doctor 
Nelson,  if  you  can — " 

"Nelson!" 

"Yes;  if  not,  get  Baker;  tell  him  I—"  then  followed 
concise  directions;  "But  try  and  get  Nelson;  he's  the 
top  man.  They're  frightfully  crowded,  and  if  you  fool 
with  understrappers,  you'll  get  turned  down.  I'd  do  it, 
but  I've  got  to  stay  here  and  see  that  she  doesn't  get 
perfectly  crazy." 

Almost  before  the  doctor  finished  his  directions,  Maurice 
was  rushing  downstairs.  .  .  .  That  next  half  hour  was  a 
nightmare.  He  ran  up  the  street,  slippery  with  ice;  saw 
over  a  drug  store  the  blue  sign  of  the  public  telephone, 
and  dashed  in — to  wait  interminably  outside  the  booth! 
A  girl  in  a  silly  hat  was  drawling  into  the  transmitter. 
Once  Maurice,  pacing  frantically  up  and  down,  heard  her 
flat  laugh;  then,  to  his  dismay,  he  saw  her,  through  the 
glass  of  the  door,  instead  of  hanging  up  the  receiver,  drop 
a  coin  into  the  slot.  .  .  / 

' '  Damn !  Another  five  minutes ! ' ' 

He  turned  and  struck  his  fist  on  the  counter.  "Why  the 
devil  don't  you  have  two  booths  here?"  he  demanded. 

The  druggist,  lounging  against  the  soda-water  fountain, 
smiled  calmly:  " You  can  search  me.  Ask  the  company." 

' '  Can't  you  stop  that  woman  ?  My  business  is  important. 
For  God's  sake  pull  her  out!" 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  245 

"She's  telephoning  her  beau,  I  guess.  Who's  going  to 
stop  a  lady  telephoning  her  beau?  Not  me." 

The  feather  gave  a  last  flirtatious  jerk — and  the  booth 
was  empty. 

Maurice,  closing  its  double  doors,  and  shutting  himself 
into  the  tiny  box  where  the  fetid  air  seemed  to  take  him 
by  the  throat  and  the  space  was  so  narrow  he  could  hardly 
crowd  his  long  legs  into  it,  rushed  into  another  delay. 
Wrong  number !  .  .  .  When  at  last  he  got  the  right  num- 
ber and  the  hospital,  there  were  the  usual  deliberate  ques- 
tions; and  the,  "I'll  connect  you  with  So-and-so's  desk." 
Maurice,  sitting  with  the  receiver  to  his  ear,  could  feel  the 
blood  pounding  in  his  temples.  His  mind  whirled  with  the 
possibilities  of  what  Lily  might  say  in  his  absence:  "She'll 
tell  the  doctor  my  name — "  As  his  wire  was  connected, 
first  with  one  authority  and  then  with  another,  each 
authority  asked  the  same  question,  "Are  you  one  of  the 
family?"  And  to  each  he  gave  the  same  answer,  "No;  a 
friend;  the  doctor  asked  me  to  call  you  up." 

Finally  came  the  voice  of  the  "top  man" — the  voice 
which  had  spoken  in  Lily's  narrow  hall  six  years  ago,  the 
voice  which  had  joked  with  Edith  at  the  Mortons'  dinner 
party,  the  voice  which  had  burst  into  extravagant  guffaws 
under  the  silver  poplar  in  his  own  garden — Doctor 
Nelson's  voice — curt,  impersonal :  "Who  is  this  speaking ? " 

Then  Maurice's  voice,  disguised  into  a  gruff  treble,  "A 
friend." 

"One  of  the  family?" 

"No." 

Five  minutes  later  Maurice,  coming  out  of  that  horrible 
little  booth,  the  matter  arranged  at  an  expense  which, 
later,  would  give  Jacky's  father  some  bad  moments,  was 
cold  from  head  to  foot.  When  he  reached  Lily's  house  the 
ambulance  was  waiting  at  the  door.  Upstairs,  the  doctor 
said,  "Well?" 

And  Lily  said :  "  Did  you  do  it  ?  If  you  didn't,  I'll—  " 

"I  did,"  Maurice  said.  Then  he  asked  if  he  could  be  of 
any  further  service. 


246  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

"No;  the  orderly  will  get  him  downstairs.  He's  too 
heavy  for  Mrs.  Dale  to  cany.  She's  got  her  things  all 
ready.  You — "he  said,  smiling  at  Maurice,  "Mr. — ?  I 
didn't  get  your  name.  You  look  all  in !"- 

Maurice  shook  his  head:  "I'm  all  right.  Mrs.  Dale 
will  you  step  in  here?  I  want  to  speak  to  you  a  minute." 
As  Lily  preceded  him  into  the  dining  room,  he  said,  quickly, 
to  the  doctor,  "I  want  to  tell  her  not  to  worry  about 
money,  you  know."  To  Lily — when  he  closed  the  door — 
he  was  briefly  ruthless:  "I'll  pay  for  everything.  But  I 
just  want  to  say,  if  he  dies — " 

She  screamed  out,  "No — no!" 

"He  won't,"  he  said,  angrily;  "but  if  he  does,  you  are 
to  say  his  father's  dead.  Do  you  understand?  Say  his 
name  was — what  did  you  call  it? — William?" 

"I  don't  know.  My  God!  what  difference  does  it  make? 
Call  it  anything!  John." 

"Well,  say  his  father  was  John  Dale  of  New  York,  and 
he's  dead.  Promise  me ! " 

She  promised — "Honest  to  God ! "  her  face  was  furrowed 
with  fright.  As  they  went  back  to  the  doctor  Maurice  had 
a  glimpse  of  Lily's  bedroom,  where  Jacky,  rolled  in  a  blan- 
ket, was  vociferating  that  he  would  not  be  carried  down- 
stairs by  the  orderly. 

"Oh,  Sweety,"  Lily  entreated;  "see,  nice  pretty  gentle- 
man !  Let  him  carry  you  ? " 

"Won't,"  said  Jacky. 

At  which  Maurice  said,  decidedly:  "Behave  yourself, 
Jacobus!  I'll  carry  you." 

Instantly  Jacky  stopped  crying:  "You  throwed  away 
the  present  I  give  you,"  he  said;  "but,"  he  conceded, 
"you  may  carry  me." 

The  doctor  objected.    ' '  It  isn't  safe— ' ' 

"  Oh,  let's  get  it  over,"  Maurice  said,  sharply;  "  I  sha'n't 
see  any  children.  It's  safe  enough !  Anything  to  stop  this 
scene!" 

The  bothered  doctor  half  consented,  and  Maurice  lifted 
Jacky,  very  gently;  as  he  did  so,  the  little  fellow  some- 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  247 

how  squirmed  a  hand  out  of  the  infolding  blanket,  and 
made  a  hot  clutch  for  his  father's  ear;  he  gripped  it  so 
firmly  that,  in  spite  of  Maurice's  wincing  expostulation, 
he  pulled  the  big  blond  head  over  sidewise  until  it  rested 
on  his  own  little  head.  That  burning  grip  held  Maurice 
prisoner  all  the  way  downstairs;  it  chained  him  to  the 
child  until  they  reached  the  street.  There  the  clutch 
relaxed,  but  for  one  poignant  moment,  as  Maurice  lifted 
Jacky  into  the  ambulance,  father  and  son  looked  into 
each  other's  eyes,  and  Maurice  said — the  words  suddenly 
tumbling  from  his  lips: 

"Now,  my  little  Jacky,  you'll  be  good,  won't  you?" 
Then  the  ambulance  rolled  softly  away,  and  he  stood  on 
the  curbstone  and  felt  his  heart  swelling  in  his  throat: 
"Why  did  I  say  'my'?"  As  he  walked  home  he  tried  to 
explain  the  possessing  word  away:  "Of  course  I'd  say 
'my' to  any  child;  it  didn't  mean  anything!  But  suppose 
the  orderly  had  heard  me?"  Even  while  he  thus  denied 
the  Holy  Spirit  within  him,  he  was  feeling  again  that  hot, 
ridiculous  tug  on  his  ear.  "/  was  the  only  one  who  could 
manage  him,"  he  thought.  ...  "Of  course  what  I  said 
didn't  mean  anything." 

He  stopped  on  the  bridge  and  looked  down  into  the 
water — black  and  swift  and  smooth  between  floating 
cakes  of  ice.  Now  and  then  a  star  glimmered  on  a  slipping 
ripple;  on  the  iron  bridge  farther  up  the  river  a  row  of 
lights  were  strung  like  a  necklace  across  the  empty  dark- 
ness. .  .  .  Somewhere,  in  the  maze  of  streets  at  one  end 
of  the  bridge,  was  Eleanor,  lying  in  bed  with  a  desperate 
headache.  Somewhere,  in  the  maze  of  streets  at  the  other 
end  of  the  bridge,  was  Lily,  taking  "his"  little  Jacky  to  the 
hospital.  Somewhere,  on  one  of  the  hillsides  beyond  Med- 
field,  was  Edith  in  the  schoolhouse.  And  Eleanor  was 
loving  him  and  trusting  him;  and  Lily  was  "blessing 
him"  (so  she  had  told  him)  for  his  goodness;  and  Edith 
was  "betting  on  him"!  ...  "I  wonder  if  anybody  was 
ever  as  rotten  as  I  am?"  Maurice  pondered. 

Then  he  forgot  his  "rottenness,"  and  smiled.     "He 


248  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

obeyed  me!  Lily  couldn't  do  a  thing  with  him;  what  did 
he  mean  about  the  'present'?  I  believe  it  was  that  old 
cigar!  He  must  have  seen  me  pitch  it  into  the  gutter. 
He  wanted  me  to  carry  him ;  wouldn't  look  at  that  orderly ! 
What  made  him  grab  my  ear?" 

When  Maurice  said  that,  down,  down,  under  his  rage 
at  Lily,  under  his  fear  of  exposure,  under  his  nauseating 
disgust  at  himself — something  stirred,  something  flut- 
tered. The  tremor  of  a  moral  conception: 

Paternal  pride. 

"What  a  grip!" 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

AFTER  a  tornado  comes  quietness;  again  the  sun 
shines,  and  birds  sing,  and  many  small  things  look 
up,  unhurt.  It  was  incredible  to  Maurice,  eating  his 
breakfast  the  next  morning,  reading  his  paper,  opening 
his  letters,  and  glancing  at  a  pale  Eleanor,  heavy-eyed  and 
silent,  that  his  world  was  still  the  same  world  that  it  had 
been  before  he  had  picked  up  the  sealed  telegram  on  the 
hall  table.  He  asked  Eleanor  how  she  felt;  told  her  to 
take  care  of  herself;  said  he'd  not  be  at  home  to  dinner, 
and  went  off  to  his  office.  .  .  .  He  was  safe!  Those  two 
minutes  in  the  dining  room  of  Lily's  flat,  while  the  white- 
jacketed  orderly  was  trying  to  persuade  the  protesting 
Jacky  to  let  him  carry  him  downstairs,  had  removed  any 
immediate  alarm;  Lily  had  promised  not  to  communi- 
cate with  Jacky 's  father. 

So  Maurice,  walking  to  the  office,  told  himself  that 
everything  was  all  right — but  "a  close  call!"  Then  he 
thought  of  Jacky,  who,  at  his  command,  had  so  instantly 
"behaved  himself";  and  of  that  grip  on  his  ear;  and 
again  that  pang  of  something  he  did  not  recognize  made 
him  swallow  hard.  "Poor  little  beggar!"  he  thought: 
"I  wonder  how  he  is?  I  wonder  if  he'll  pull  through?" 
He  hoped  he  would.  "Tough  on  Lily,  if  anything  hap- 
pens." But  his  anxiety — though  he  did  not  know  it — was 
not  entirely  on  Lily's  account.  For  the  first  time  in  the 
child's  life,  Maurice  was  aware  of  Jacky  as  a  possession. 
The  tornado  of  the  night  before — the  anger  and  fear  and 
pity — had  plowed  down  below  the  surface  of  his  mind, 
and  touched  that  subsoil  of  conscious  responsibility  for 
creation,  the  realization  that,  whether  through  love  or 


25o  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

through  selfishness,  the  man  who  brings  a  child  into  this 
terrible,  squalid,  glorious  world,  is  a  creator,  even  as  God 
is  the  Creator.  So  Maurice,  sitting  at  his  desk  that  next 
day,  answering  a  client  on  the  telephone,  or  making  an 
appointment  to  go  and  "look  at  a  house,"  was  really  feel- 
ing in  his  heart — not  love,  of  course,  but  a  consciousness 
of  his  own  relation  to  that  little  flushed,  suffering  body  out 
in  the  contagious  ward  of  the  hospital  in  Medfield.  "Will 
he  pull  through? "  Maurice  asked  himself.  It  was  six  years 
ago  that,  standing  at  the  door  of  a  yellow-brick  apartment 
house,  with  two  fingers  looped  through  the  strings  of  a 
box  of  roses,  Jacky's  father  had  said,  "Perhaps  it  will  be 
born  dead ! "  How  dry  his  lips  had  been  that  day  with  the 
hope  of  death !  Now,  suddenly,  his  lips  were  dry  with  fear 
that  the  kid  wouldn't  pull  through — which  would  be 
"tough  on  Lily."  His  face  was  stern  with  this  new  emo- 
tion of  anxiety  which  was  gradually  becoming  pain;  he 
even  forgot  how  scared  he  had  been  at  the  thought  that 
Eleanor  might  have  opened  that  telegram.  "I  swear,  I 
wish  I  hadn't  hurt  his  feelings  about  that  cigar  stub!" 
he  said.  Then  he  remembered  Eleanor:  "I  could  wring 
Lily's  neck!"  But  Eleanor  hadn't  opened  the  telegram; 
and  Maurice  hoped  Jacky  would  get  well — because  "it 
would  be  tough  on  Lily"  if  he  didn't.  Thus  he  dismissed 
his  wife.  So  long  as  Lily's  recklessness  had  not  done  any 
harm,  it  was  easy  to  dismiss  her — so  very  far  had  she 
receded  into  the  dull,  patiently-to-be-endured,  background 
of  life! 

The  Eleanor  of  the  next  few  weeks,  who  seemed  just 
a  little  more  melancholy  and  silent  than  usual,  a  little 
more  devoted  to  old  Bingo,  did  not  attract  his  attention 
in  any  way.  But  when  Edith  came  in  on  the  following  Sun- 
day, he  had  his  wife  sufficiently  on  his  mind  to  say,  in  a 
quick  aside : 

"Edith,  don't  give  me  away  on  being  sort  of  upset  last 
Sunday  night,  will  you?"  (As  he  spoke,  he  remembered 
that  swift  kiss.  "Nice  little  Skeezics!"  he  thought.) 
But  he  finished  his  sentence  with  perfect  matter-of-fact- 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  251 

ness:  "it  was  just  a — a  little  personal  worry.  I  don't 
want  Eleanor  bothered,  you  understand?" 

"Of  course,"  said  Edith,  gravely 

And  so  it  was  that  in  another  month  or  two,  with  reli- 
ance upon  Edith's  discretion,  and  satisfaction  in  a  recover- 
ing Jacky,  the  track  of  the  tornado  in  Maurice's  mind  was 
quite  covered  up  with  the  old,  ugly,  commonplace  of 
furtive  security.  In  the  security  Maurice  was  conscious, 
in  a  kindly  way,  that  poor  old  Eleanor  looked  pretty 
seedy;  so  he  brought  her  some  flowers  once  in  a  while; 
not  as  often  as  he  would  have  liked  to,  for,  though  he  had 
more  money  now,  eight  weeks  of  a  private  room  in  a  hos- 
pital "kind  o'  makes  a  dent  in  your  income,"  Maurice 
told  himself;  "but  I  don't  begrudge  it,"  he  thought; 
"I'm  glad  the  kid  got  well." 

So,  after  that  night  of  terror  and  turmoil, — when 
Eleanor  had  fainted — Maurice's  life  in  his  own  house 
settled  again  into  the  old  tranquil  forlornness,  enlivened 
only  by  those  Sunday-afternoon  visits  from  Edith. 

And  Eleanor?  .  .  .  There  had  been  some  dumb  days, 
when  she  moved  about  the  house  or  sat  opposite  Maurice 
at  table,  or  exercised  Bingo,  like  an  automaton.  Some- 
times she  sat  at  her  window,  looking  down  through  the 
bare  branches  of  the  poplar  at  the  still,  wintry  garden; 
the  painted  table,  heaped  with  grimy  snow  slowly  melting 
in  the  chill  March  sunshine;  the  dead  stalks  of  the  lilies 
on  each  side  of  the  icy  bricks  of  the  path ;  the  rusty  bars 
of  the  iron  gate,  through  which,  now  and  then,  came  the 
glimmer,  a  block  away,  of  the  river — "their  river " !  Some- 
times for  an  hour  her  mind  numbly  considered  these 
things;  then  would  come  a  fierce  throb  of  pain :  "He  was 
all  the  time  saying  he  'couldn't  afford'  things;  that  was 
so  he  could  give  her  money,  I  suppose? "  Then  blank  list- 
lessness  again.  She  did  not  suffer  very  much.  She  was 
too  stunned  to  suffer.  She  merely  said  to  herself,  vaguely, 
"I'll  leave  him."  It  may  have  been  on  the  third  day  that, 
when  she  said,  "  I  will  leave  him ;  he  has  been  false  to  me, " 
her  mind  whispered  back,  very  faintly,  like  an  echo,  "He 
17 


252  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

has  been  false  to  himself."  For  just  a  moment  she  loved 
him  enough  to  think  that  he  had  sinned.  Maurice  had 
sinned!  When  she  said  that,  the  dismay  of  it  made  her 
forget  herself.  She  said  it  with  horror,  and  after  a  while 
she  added  a  question :  "Why  did  he  do  it?"  Then  came, 
beating  its  way  up  through  anger  and  wounded  pride,  and 
suffering  love,  still  another  question:  "Was  it  my  fault 
that  he  did  it?  Did  he  fall  in  love  with  that  frightful 
woman  because  I  failed  him?"  Instantly  her  mind 
sheered  off  from  this  question:  "I  did  everything  I  knew 
how  to  make  him  happy !  I  would  have  died  to  make  him 
happy.  I  adored  him!  How  could  he  care  for  that 
common,  ignorant  woman  I  saw  on  the  porch?  A  woman 
who  wasn't  a  lady.  A — a  bad  woman!"  But  yet  the 
question  repeated  itself:  "Why?  Why?"  It  demanded 
an  answer:  Why  did  Maurice — high-minded,  pure- 
hearted,  overflowing  with  a  love  as  beautiful,  and  as  per- 
fect as  Youth  itself — how  could  Maurice  be  drawn  to 
such  a  woman?  And  by  and  by  the  answer  struggled  to 
her  lips,  tearing  her  heart  as  it  came  with  dreadful  pain: 
"He  did  it  because  I  didn't  make  him  happy." 

Just  as  Maurice,  recognizing  the  responsibility  of  crea- 
tion, had,  at  the  touch  of  his  son's  little  hand,  felt  the 
tremor  of  a  moral  conception,  so  now  Eleanor,  barren  so 
long!  felt  the  pangs  of  a  birth  of  spiritual  responsibility: 
"I  didn't  make  him  happy,  so —  Oh,  my  poor  Maurice, 
it  was  my  fault!"  .  .  .  But  of  course  this  divine  self- 
forgetfulness  in  self-reproach,  was  as  feeble  as  any  new- 
born thing.  When  it  stirred,  and  uttered  little  elemental 
sounds — "my  fault,  my  fault" — she  forgot  the  wrong 
he  had  done  her,  in  seeing  the  wrong  he  had  done  himself. 
.  .  ."Oh,  my  Maurice — my  Maurice!"  But  most  of  the 
time  she  did  not  hear  this  frail  cry  of  the  sense  of  sin !  She 
thought  entirely  and  angrily  of  herself;  she  said,  over 
and  over,  that  she  was  going  to  leave  him.  She  was 
absorbed  in  hideous  and  poignant  imaginings,  based  on 
that  organic  curiosity  which  is  experienced  only  by  the 
woman  who  meditates  upon  "the  other  woman."  When 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  253 

these  visions  overwhelmed  her,  she  said  she  wouldn't  leave 
him — she  would  hold  him!  She  wouldn't  give  him  up  to 
that  frightful  creature,  whom  he — kissed.  .  .  .  "Oh,  my 
God!  He  kisses  her \"  No;  she  wouldn't  give  him  up;  she 
would  just  accuse  him;  just  tell  him  she  knew  he  had  been 
false;  tell  him  there  was  no  use  lying  about  it!  Then, 
perhaps,  say  she  would  forgive  him?  .  .  .  Yes;  if  he 
would  promise  to  throw  the  vile  woman  over,  she  would 
forgive  him.  She  did  not,  of  course,  reflect  that  forgive- 
ness is  not  a  thing  that  can  be  promised;  it  cannot  be 
manufactured.  It  comes  in  exact  proportion  as  we  love 
the  sinner  more  and  self  less. 

And  forgiveness  is  not  f orgetfulness !    It  is  more  love. 

Eleanor  did  not  know  this.  So,  except  for  those  occa- 
sional cooling  and  divine  moments  of  blaming  herself, 
she  scorched  and  shriveled  in  the  flames  of  self-love.  And 
as  usual,  she  was  speechless.  There  were  many  of  these 
silent  hours  (which  were  such  a  matter  of  course  to  Maurice 
that  he  never  noticed  them!)  before  she  gathered  herself 
together,  and  decided  that  she  would  not  leave  him.  She 
would  fight !  How?  "Oh,  I  can't  think ! "  she  moaned.  So 
those  first  days  passed — days  of  impotent  determinations, 
which  whirled  and  alternated,  and  contradicted  each 
other. 

Once  Maurice,  glancing  at  her  over  his  newspaper  at 
breakfast,  thought  to  himself,  "She  hasn't  said  a  word 
since  she  got  up!  Poor  Eleanor!"  .  .  .  Then  he  remem- 
bered how  he  had  once  supposed  these  silences  of  hers 
were  full  of  things  too  lovely  and  profound  for  words! 
He  frowned,  and  read  the  sporting  page,  and  forgot  her 
silences,  and  her,  too.  But  he  did  not  forget  Jacky.  "I'll 
buy  the  kid  a  ball,"  he  was  thinking.  .  .  . 

So  the  days  passed,  and  each  day  Eleanor  dredged  her 
silences,  to  find  words:  "What  shall  I  say  to  him?"  for 
of  course  she  must  say  something!  She  must  "have  it  out 
with  him,"  as  the  phrase  is.  Sometimes  she  would  decide 
to  burst  into  a  statement  of  the  fact:  "Somebody  called 
L.  D.'  has  a  claim  upon  you,  because  she  sends  for  you 


2S4  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

when  'Jacky'  is  sick.  I  am  certain  that  'Jacky'  is  your 
child!  I  am  certain  that  'L.  D.'  is  Mrs.  Dale.  I  am  certain 
that  you  don't  love  me."  .  .  .  And  he  would  say —  Then 
her  heart  would  stand  still :  What  would  he  say  ?  He  would 
say,  "I  stopped  loving  you  because  you  are  old."  And  to 
that  would  come  her  own  terrible  assent:  "I  had  no  right 
to  marry  him — he  was  only  nineteen.  I  had  no  right.  ..." 
(Thus  did  that  new-born  sense  of  her  own  complicity  in 
Maurice's  sin  raise  its  feeble  voice!)  And  little  by  little 
the  Voice  became  stronger:  "I  didn't  make  him  happy, 
not  because  I  was  old,  but  because  I  was  selfish."  .  .  . 
So,  in  alternating  gusts  of  anger  and  fear,  and  outraged 
pride, — and  self-forgetting  horror  for  Maurice, — her  soul 
began  to  awake.  Again  and  again  she  counted  the  reasons 
why  he  had  not  been  happy,  beginning  with  the  obvious 
reason,  his  youth  and  her  age:  But  that  did  not  explain 
it.  ' '  We  had  no  children. "  That  did  not  explain  it !  Nor, 
"I  wasn't  a  good  housekeeper";  nor,  "I  didn't  do  things 
with  him.  ...  I  didn't  skate,  and  walk,  and  joke  with 
him";  nor,  "I  didn't  entertain  him.  Auntie  always  said 
men  must  be  entertained.  I — I  am  stupid . ' '  There  was  no 
explanation  in  such  things;  neither  dullness  nor  ineffi- 
ciency was  enough  to  drive  a  man  like  Maurice  Curtis  into 
dishonor  or  faithlessness!  Then  came  the  real  explana- 
tion— which  jealousy  so  rarely  puts  into  words:  "I  was 
selfish."  At  first,  this  bleak  truthfulness  was  only  momen- 
tary. Almost  immediately  she  was  swept  from  the  noble 
pain  of  knowing  that  Maurice  had  been  false  to  himself; 
swept  from  the  sense  of  her  own  share  in  that  falseness, 
swept  back  to  the  insult  to  herself!  Back  to  self-love. 
With  this  was  the  fear  that  if  she  accused  him,  if  she  told 
him  that  she  knew  he  was  false  to  her,  if  she  made  him 
very  angry,  he  would  leave  her,  and  go  and  live  with 
this  woman — who  had  given  him  a  child.  .  .  .  Yet  every 
morning  when  she  got  up,  she  would  say  to  herself,  "I'll 
tell  him  to-day."  And  every  night  when  she  went  to  bed, 
"To-morrow." 
Still  she  did  not  "have  it  out  with  him."  Then  weeks 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  255 

pushed  in  between  her  and  that  Sunday  afternoon  when 
the  resealed  telegram  had  been  put  on  the  hall  table. 
And  by  and  by  it  was  a  month,  and  still  she  could  not 
speak.  And  after  a  while  it  was  June — June,  and  the 
anniversary  (which  Maurice  happened  to  forget,  and  to 
which  Eleanor's  suffering  love  would  not  permit  her  to 
refer!).  By  that  June  day,  that  marked  nine  of  the  golden 
fifty  years,  Eleanor  had  done  what  many  another  sad  and 
injured  woman  has  done — dug  a  grave  in  her  heart,  and 
buried  Trust  and  Pride  in  it ;  and  then  watched  the  grave 
night  and  day.  Sometimes,  as  she  watched,  her  thought 
was:  "If  he  would  tell  me  the  truth,  even  now,  I  would 
forgive  him.  It  is  his  living  a  lie,  every  day,  every  minute, 
that  I  can't  bear!"  Then  she  would  look  at  Maurice — 
sitting  at  the  piano,  perhaps,  playing  dreamily,  or  stand- 
ing up  in  front  of  the  fireplace  filling  his  pipe,  and  poking 
old  Bingo  with  his  foot  and  telling  him  he  was  getting  too 
fat ;  ' '  You're  '  losin'  your  figger, '  Bingo ! ' '  Eleanor,  looking 
and  listening,  would  say  to  herself,  "Is  he  thinking  of 
Mrs.  Dale,  now?"  And  all  day  long,  when  she  was  alone 
(watching  the  grave),  she  would  think:  "Where  is  he 
now?  Is  he  with  her?  Oh,  I  think  I  will  follow  him, — 
and  watch.  .  .  .  Was  he  with  her  last  night  when  he  said 
he  had  gone  to  the  theater?  ...  Is  he  lying  to  me  when 
he  says  he  has  to  go  away  on  business,  and  is  he  really 
with  her?  It's  the  lying  I  can't  bear !  If  only  he  would  not 
lie  to  me!  .  .  .  Does  she  call  him  'Maurice'?  Perhaps 
she  called  him  'darling'?"  The  thought  of  an  intimacy 
like  that,  was  oil  on  the  vehement  flame! 

"You  look  dreadfully,  Eleanor,"  Mrs.  Newbolt  told  her 
once,  her  pale,  protruding  eyes  full  of  real  anxiety.  "I'd 
go  and  see  a  doctor,  if  I  were  you." 

"I'm  well  enough,"  Eleanor  said,  listlessly. 

"At  your  age,"  said  her  aunt,  "you  never  can  tell  what's 
gain'  on  inside!  Here's  a  piece  of  candy  for  Bingo — he's 
too  fat.  My  dear  father  used  to  say  that  a  man's  soul  and 
his  gizzard  could  hold  a  lot  of  secrets.  It's  the  same  with 
women.  So  look  out  for  your  gizzard.  Here,  Bingo!" 


2S6  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

Eleanor  was  silent.  She  had  just  come  from  Mrs. 
O'Brien's,  where  she  had  given  the  slowly  failing  Donny 
a  happy  hour,  and  she  was  tired.  Mrs.  Newbolt  found  her 
alone  in  the  garden,  sitting  under  the  shimmering  silver 
poplar.  The  lilies  were  just  coming  into  bloom,  and  on 
the  age-blackened  iron  trellis  of  the  veranda  the  wistaria 
had  flung  its  purple  scarves  among  the  thin  fringes  of  its 
new  leaves.  The  green  tea  table  was  bare :  "I'd  give  you 
a  cup  of  tea,"  Eleanor  said,  "but  Maurice  is  going  out  to 
dinner,  so  I  told  Mary  not  to  keep  the  fire  up,  just  for  me." 

"Maurice  goin'  out  to  dinner!  Why,  it's  your  weddin* 
day!  Eleanor,  if  I  have  one  virtue,  it's  candor:  Maurice 
oughtn't  to  be  out  to  dinner  so  much — and  on  your  anni- 
versary, too !  Of  course,  it's  just  what  I  expected  when  you 
married  him;  but  that's  done,  and  I'm  not  one  to  keep 
throwin'  it  up  at  you.  If  you  want  to  hold  him,  now,  you've 
got  to  keep  your  figger,  and  set  a  good  table.  Yes,  and 
leave  the  door  open!  Edith  has  a  figger.  She  entertains 
him,  just  the  way  I  used  to  entertain  your  dear  uncle — 
by  talkin'.  I'd  have  Bingo  put  away,  if  I  were  you;  he's 
too  old  to  be  comfortable.  You  got  to  make  him  want  to 
sit  by  the  fire  and  knit !  But  here  you  are,  sittin'  by  your- 
self, lookin'  like  a  dead  fish.  A  man  don't  like  a  dead  fish — 
unless  it's  cooked'  I  used  to  broil  shad  for  your  dear 
uncle."  For  an  instant  she  had  no  words  to  express  that 
culinary  perfection  by  which  she  had  kept  the  deceased 
Mr.  Newbolt 's  stomach  faithful  to  her.  "Yes,  you've  got 
to  be  entertainin',  or  else  he'll  go  up  the  chimney,  and  out 
to  dinner,  and  forget  what  Day  it  is!" 

Eleanor's  sudden  pallor  made  her  stop  midway  in  her 
torrent  of  frankness;  it  was  then  she  said,  again,  really 
alarmed:  "See  a  doctor!  You  know,"  she  added,  jocosely, 
"if  you  die,  he'll  marry  Edith ;  and  you  wouldn't  like  that  !" 

"No,"  Eleanor  said,  faintly,  "I  wouldn't  like  that." 


CHAPTER  XXV 

WHEN  a  rather  shaky  Jacky  was  discharged  from 
the  hospital,  Lily  notified  Maurice  of  his  recovery 
and  added  that  she  had  movr   . 

I  couldn't  [Lily  wrote]  go  back  t^  that  woman  who  turned 
me  out  when  Jacky  was  sick:  so  I  got  me  a  little  house  on  Maple 
Street — way  down  at  the  far  end  from  where  I  was  before,  so 
you  needn't  worry  about  anybody  seeing  me.  My  rent's  higher, 
but  there's  a  swell  church  on  the  next  street.  I  meant  to 
move,  anyway,  because  I  found  out  that  there  was  a  regular 
huzzy  living  in  the  next  house  on  Ash  Street,  painted  to  beat  the 
band!  And  I  don't  want  Jacky  to  see  that  kind.  I've  got  five 
mealers.  But  eggs  is  something  fierce.  I  am  writing  these  few 
lines  to  say  Jacky's  well,  and  I  hope  they  find  you  in  good 
health.  It  was  real  nice  in  you  to  fix  that  up  at  the  hospital  for 
me.  I  hope  you'll  come  and  see  us  one  of  these  days. 

Your  friend, 

LILY. 

P.  S. — Of  course  I'm  sorry  for  her  poor  old  father. 

Reading  this,  Maurice  said  to  himself  that  it  would  be 
decent  to  go  and  see  Lily;  which  meant,  though  he  didn't 
know  it,  that  he  wanted  to  see  Jacky.  He  wasn't  aware 
of  anything  in  the  remotest  degree  like  affection  for  the 
child ;  he  just  had  this  inarticulate  purpose  of  seeing  him, 
which  took  the  form  of  saying  that  it  would  be  "decent" 
to  inquire  about  him.  However,  he  did  not  yield  to 
this  formless  wish  until  June.  Then,  on  that  very  after- 
noon when  Mrs.  Newbolt  had  been  so  shatteringly  frank 
to  Eleanor,  he  walked  down  to  the  "far  end  of  Maple 
Street."  And  as  he  walked,  he  suddenly  remembered  that 
it  was  "The  Day"!  "Great  Scott!  I  forgot  it !"  he  thought. 
"Funny,  Eleanor  didn't  remind  me.  Maybe  she's  for- 


258  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

gotten,  too?"  But  he  frowned  at  the  bad  taste  of  such 
an  errand  on  such  a  day,  and  would  have  turned  back — 
but  at  that  moment  he  saw  what  (with  an  eagerness  of 
which  he  was  not  conscious!)  he  had  been  looking  for — 
a  tow-headed  boy,  who,  pulling  a  reluctant  dog  along  by 
a  string  tied  around  his  neck,  was  following  a  hand  organ. 
And  Maurice  forgot  his  wedding  anniversary! 

He  freed  the  half -choked  puppy,  and  told  his  son  what 
he  thought.  But  Jacky,  glaring  up  at  the  big  man  who 
interfered  with  his  joys,  told  his  father  what  he  thought: 

"If  I  was  seven  years  old,  I'd  lick  the  tar  out  of  you! 
But  I'm  six,  going  on  seven." 

Maurice,  looking  down  on  this  miniature  self,  was,  to 
his  astonishment,  quite  diverted.  "You  need  a  licking 
yourself,  young  man!  Is  your  mother  at  home?" 

Jacky  wouldn't  answer. 

Maurice  took  a  quarter  out  of  his  pocket  and  held  it 
up.  "Know  what  that  is?" 

Jacky,  advancing  slowly,  looked  at  the  coin,  but  made 
no  response. 

"Come  back  to  the  house  and  find  your  mother,  and  I'll 
give  it  to  you." 

Jacky,  keeping  at  a  displeased  distance  behind  the 
visitor,  followed  him  to  his  own  gate,  then  darted  into  the 
house,  yelled,  "Maw!"  returned,  and  held  out  his  hand. 

Maurice  gave  him  the  quarter  and  went  into  the  parlor, 
where  the  south  window  was  full  of  plants,  and  the 
sunshine  was  all  a  green  fragrance  of  rose  geraniums. 
When  a  shiningly  clean,  smiling  Lily  appeared — evidently 
from  the  kitchen,  for  she  was  carrying  a  plate  of  hot 
gingerbread — she  found  Maurice  sitting  down,  his  hands 
in  his  pockets,  his  long  legs  stretched  out  in  front  of  him, 
baiting  Jacky  with  questions,  and  chuckling  at  the 
courageous  impudence  of  the  youngster. 

"He's  no  fool,"  said  Maurice  to  himself.  "This  kid  is  a 
handful!"  he  told  Lily.  .  .  .  "You're  a  bully  cook!" 

"You  bet  he  is!"  Lily  said,  proudly.  "Have  another 
piece?  I've  got  to  take  some  over  to  Ash  Street  for  that 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  259 

poor  old  man.  ...  Oh  yes;  I  was  kind  of  put  out  at  his 
daughter.  Wouldn't  you  think,  if  anyone  was  enough  of  a 
lady  to  wash  your  father,  you  wouldn't  go  to  the  Board  of 
Health  about  her?  But  there!  The  old  gentleman's  silly, 
so  I  have  to  take  him  some  gingerbread.  .  .  .  Say,  I  must 
tell  you  something  funny — he's  the  cutest  young  one!  I 
gave  him  five  cents  for  the  missionary  box,  and  he  went 
and  bought  a  jew's-harp !  I  had  to  laugh,  it  was  so  cute  in 
him.  But  I  declare,  sometimes  I  don't  know  what  I'm 
going  to  do  with  him,  he's  that  fresh!" 

"Spank  him,"  Maurice  advised. 

Lily  looked  annoyed;  "He  suits  me — and  he  belongs 
to  me." 

"Of  course  he  does!  You  needn't  think  that  I — "  he 
paused ;  something  would  not  let  him  finish  those  denying 
words :  ' '  that  / — want  him. ' '  Jacky ,  standing  with  stocky 
legs  wide  apart,  his  hands  behind  him,  his  fearless  blue 
eyes  looking  right  into  Maurice's,  made  his  father's  heart 
quicken.  Jacky  was  Lily's,  of  course,  but — 

So  they  looked  at  each  other — the  big,  blond,  handsome 
father  and  the  little  son — and  Jacky  said,  "Mr.  Curtis, 
does  God  see  everything?" 

"Why,  yes,"  Maurice  said,  rather  confused,  "He  does, 
Jacky.  So,"  he  ended,  with  proper  solemnity,  "you  must 
be  a  very  good  boy." 

"Why,"  said  Jacky,  "will  He  get  one  in  on  me  if  I 
ain't?"' 

"So  I'm  told,"  said  Maurice. 

"Does  He  see  everything?"  Jacky  pressed,  frowning;  and 
Maurice  said: 

"Yes,  sir!   Everything." 

Jacky  reflected  and  sighed.  "Well,"  he  said,  "I  should 
think  He'd  laugh  when  he  sees  your  shoes." 

"Why!  what's  the  matter  with  my  shoes?"  his  dis- 
comfited father  said,  looking  down  at  his  feet.  "My  shoes 
are  all  right!"  he  defended  himself. 

"Big,"  Jacky  said,  shyly. 

Maurice  roared,  crushed  a  geranium  leaf  in  his  hand, 


26o  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

and  asked  his  son  what  he  was  going  to  be  when  he  grew 
up;  "Theology  seems  to  be  your  long  suit,  Jacobus. 
Better  go  into  the  Church." 

Jacky  shook  his  head.  "I'm  going  to  be  a  enginair. 
Or  a  robber." 

"I'd  try  engineering  if  I  were  you.  People  don't  like 
robbers." 

"But  I'll  be  a  nice  robber,"  Jacky  explained,  anxiously. 

"I'll  bring  you  a  train  of  cars  some  day,"  Maurice  said. 

"Say,  'Thank  you,'  Jacky,"  Lily  instructed  him. 

Again  Jacky  shook  his  head.  "He  'ain't  gimme  the 
cars  yet." 

Maurice  was  immensely  amused.  "He  wants  the  goods 
before  he  signs  a  receipt!  I'll  buy  some  cars  for  him." 

"My  soul  and  body!"  said  Lily,  following  him  to  the 
door;  "that  boy  gets  'round  everybody!  Well,  what  do 
you  suppose?  I  go  to  church  with  him!  Ain't  that  rich? 
Me!  He  don't  like  church — though  he's  crazy  about  the 
music.  But  I  take  him.  And  I  don't  have  to  listen  to  what 
the  man  says.  I  just  plan  out  the  food  for  a  week.  Some- 
times,"— her  amber  eyes  were  lovely  with  anxiously 
pondering  love — "sometimes  I  don't  know  but  what  I'll 
make  a  preacher  of  him?  Some  preachers  marry  money, 
and  get  real  gentlemanly.  And  then  again  I  think  I'd 
rather  have  him  a  clubman.  But,  anyway,  I'm  savin'  up 
every  last  cent  to  educate  him!" 

"He's  worth  it,"  Maurice  said,  and  there  was  pride  in 
his  voice;  "yes,  we  must — I  mean,  you  must  educate 
him." 

On  his  way  home,  stopping  to  buy  some  flowers  for  his 
wife,  Maurice  found  himself  thinking  of  Jacky  as  a  boy 
...  as  a  mighty  bright  boy,  who  must  be  educated. 
As — his  boy! 

"You  forgot  the  day,"  he  challenged  Eleanor,  good- 
naturedly,  when  he  handed  her  the  violets. 

She  said,  briefly,  "No;  I  hadn't  forgotten." 

The  pain  in  her  worn  face  made  him  wince.  .  .  .  But  he 
was  able  to  forget  it  in  thinking  of  the  toys  he  had 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  261 

ordered  for  Jacky  on  the  way  home.  "I'd  like  to  see  him 
playing  with  them,"  he  said  to  himself,  reflecting  upon  the 
track,  and  the  engine,  and  the  very  expensive  wonder  of  a 
tiny  snow  plow.  But  he  didn't  yield  to  the  impulse  to  see 
the  boy  for  a  month.  For  one  thing,  he  was  afraid  to.  The 
recollection  of  that  day  when  Lily's  doorstep  had  been 
the  edge  of  a  volcano  still  made  him  shiver;  and  as  Eleanor 
had  briefly  but  definitely  refused  to  take  her  usual  "vaca- 
tion" at  Green  Hill  without  him,  there  was  no  time  when 
he  could  be  sure  that  she  would  not  wander  out  to  Med- 
field !  So  it  was  not  until  one  August  afternoon,  when  he 
knew  that  she  was  going  to  a  concert,  that  he  went  to 
Maple  Street.  But  first  he  bought  a  top ; — and  just  as  he 
was  leaving  the  office,  he  went  back  and  rummaged  in  a 
pigeonhole  in  his  desk  and  found  a  tiny  gilt  hatchet;  "it 
will  amuse  him,"  he  thought,  cynically. 

Lily  was  not  at  home;  but  Jacky  was  sitting  on  the 
back  doorstep,  twanging  his  jew's-harp.  He  was  shy  at 
first,  and  tongue-tied ;  then  wildly  excited  on  learning  that 
there  were  "presents"  in  Mr.  Curtis 's  pocket.  When  the 
top  was  produced,  he  dropped  his  jew's-harp  to  watch  it 
spin  on  a  string  held  between  Maurice's  hands;  then  he 
devoted  himself  to  the  hatchet,  and  chopped  his  father's 
knee,  energetically.  "Pity  there's  no  cherry  tree  round," 
said  Maurice;  "Look  here,  Jacobus,  I  want  you  always 
to  tell  the  truth.  Understand?" 

"Huh?"  said  Jacky.  However,  under  the  spell  of  his 
gifts  he  became  quite  conversational;  he  said  that  one 
of  these  here  automobiles  drooled  a  lot  of  oil.  "An' 
it  ran  into  the  gutter.  An'  say,  Mr.  Curtis,  I  saw  a  rain- 
bow in  a  puddle.  An'  say,  it  was  handsome."  After 
that  he  got  out  his  locomotive  and  its  cars.  Maurice 
mended  a  broken  switch  for  him,  and  then  they  laid  the 
tracks  on  the  kitchen  floor,  and  the  big  father  and  the 
little  son  pushed  the  train  under  a  table;  that  was  a 
roundhouse,  Maurice  told  Jacky.  ("Why  don't  they 
have  a  square  house?"  Jacky  said);  and  beneath  the 
lounge — which  was  a  tunnel,  the  bigger  boy  announced j 


262  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

("What  is  a  tunnel?"  said  Jacky) — and  over  Lily's 
ironing  board  stretched  between  two  stools;  "That's  a 
trestle."  ("What  grows  trestles?"  Jacky  demanded.) 
Exercise,  and  a  bombardment  of  questions,  brought  the 
perspiration  out  on  Maurice's  forehead.  He  took  off  his 
coat,  and  arranged  the  tracks  so  that  the  switches  would 
stop  derailing  trains.  In  the  midst  of  it  the  door  opened, 
and  Jacky  said,  sighing,  "Maw." 

Lily  came  in,  smiling  and  good-natured,  and  very  red- 
faced  with  the  fatigue  of  carrying  a  hideous  leprous- 
leaved  begonia  she  had  bought;  but  when  she  saw  the 
intimacy  of  the  railroad,  she  frowned.  "He'll  wear  out 
his  pants,  crawling  round  that  way,"  she  said,  sharply. 
"Now,  you  get  up,  Jacky,  and  don't  be  bothering  Mr. 
Curtis." 

"He  brung  me  two  presents.  I  like  presents.  Mr. 
Curtis,  does  God  eat  stars?" 

"God  doesn't  eat,"  Maurice  said,  amused;  "I'd  say 
/brought,'  instead  of  'brung,'  if  I  were  you." 

"Hasn't  He  got  any  mouth?"  Jacky  said,  appalled. 

"Well,  no,"  Maurice  began  (entering  that  path  of  un- 
answerable questions  in  which  all  parents  are  ordained 
to  walk);  "You  see,  God — why,  God,  He  hasn't  any 
mouth.  He—" 

"Has  He  got  a  beak?"  Jacky  said,  intensely  interested. 

"Lily,  for  Heaven's  sake,"  Maurice  implored,  "doesn't 
he  ever  stop?" 

"Never,"  said  Lily,  resignedly,  "except  when  he's 
asleep.  And  nobody  can  answer  him.  But  I  wish  he'd 
let  up  on  God.  I  tell  him  whatever  pops  into  my  head. 
When  it  comes  to  God,  I  guess  one  thing  's  as  true  as 
another.  Anyway,  nobody  can  prove  it  ain't." 

Just  as  Maurice  was  going  away,  his  theological  son 
detained  him  by  a  little  clutch  at  his  coat.  "I'll  give  you 
a  present  next  time  you  come,"  Jacky  said,  shyly. 

Even  the  hope  of  a  present  did  not  lure  Maurice  out  to 

Maple  Street  very  soon.    But  it  was  self-preservation,  as 

^well  as  fear  of  discovery,  which  kept  him  away.    "  If  I  saw 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  263 

much  of  him  I  might — well,  get  kind  of  fond  of  the  little 
beggar." 

The  same  thought  may  have  occurred  to  Lily;  at  any 
rate,  when,  four  weeks  later,  Jacky's  father  came  again, 
she  didn't  welcome  him  in  quite  her  old,  sweet,  hospitable 
way;  but  Jacky  welcomed  him!  .  .  .  Jacky  knew  his 
mother  as  his  slave;  he  showed  her  an  absent-minded 
affection  when  he  wanted  to  get  anything  out  of  her;  but 
he  knew  Mr.  Curtis  as  "The  Man" — the  man  who  "or- 
dered him  round,"  to  be  sure,  but  who  gave  him  presents 
and  who, — Jacky  boasted  to  some  of  his  gutter  com- 
panions,— "could  spit  two  feet  farther  than  the  p lees- 
man." 

"Aw,  how  do  you  know?"  the  other  boys  scoffed. 

Jacky,  evading  the  little  matter  of  evidence,  said,' 
haughtily,  "I  know" 

When  "The  Man"  declared  that  next  fall  Jacky  was  to 
go  to  school,  regularly,  and  not  according  to  his  own 
sweet  will,  Jacky  waited  until  he  was  alone  with  his 
mother  to  kick  and  scream  and  say  he  wouldn't.  Lily 
slapped  him,  and  said,  "Mr.  Curtis  will  give  you  a  present 
if  you're  on  time  every  morning!" 

She  told  Maurice  to  what  she  had  committed  him: 
"You  see,  I'm  bound  to  educate  him,  and  make  a  gentle- 
man of  him,  so  he  can  have  an  automobile,  and  marry  a 
society  girl.  No  chippy  is  going  to  get  Jacky — smoking 
cigarettes,  and  saying  'La!  La!'  to  any  man  that  comes 
along.  I  hate  those  cheap  girls.  Look  at  the  paint 
on  'em.  I  don't  see  how  they  have  the  face  to  show  them- 
selves on  the  street!  Well,  I  can't  make  him  prompt  at 
school;  but  he'll  be  Johnny-on-the-spot  if  you  say  so. 
My  soul  and  body,  he'll  do  anything  for  you!  He's  saved 
up  all  his  prayer  money  and  bought  a  lot  of  chewing  gum 
for  you." 

"Great  Scott!"  said  Maurice,  appalled  at  the  experi- 
mental obligations  which  his  son's  gift  might  involve. 

"So  I  told  him  that  next  winter  you'd  give  him  a  box 
of  candy  every  Saturday  if  he  was  on  time  all  the  week. 


[264  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

I  ain't  asking  you  to  go  to  any  expense,"  she  pleaded;  "I'll 
buy  the  candy.  But  you  promise  him — " 

"I'll  promise  him  a  spanking  if  he's  not  on  time,  once," 
Maurice  retorted;  "for  Heaven's  sake,  Lily,  let  up  on 
spoiling  him!" 

At  which  Lily  said:  "He's  my  boy!  I  guess  I  know  how 
to  bring  him  up!" 

Maurice,  the  next  morning,  looking  across  his  break- 
fast table  at  Eleanor  and  remembering  this  remark,  said 
to  himself:  "Lily  needn't  worry;  I  don't  want  him — 
and  I  couldn't  have  him  if  I  did!  But  what  is  going  to 
become  of  him?" 

His  new,  slowly  awakening  sense  of  responsibility  ex- 
pressed itself  in  this  unanswerable  question,  which  irri- 
tated his  mind  as  a  splinter  might  have  irritated  his 
flesh.  He  thought  of  it  constantly — thought  of  it  when 
Eleanor  sang  (with  a  slurred  note  once  or  twice),  "O 
sweet,  O  sweet  content!"  Thought  of  it  when  his  con- 
science reminded  him  that  he  must  have  tea  with  her  in 
the  garden  under  the  poplar  on  Sunday  afternoons. 
Thought  of  it  when  he  and  she  went  up  to  the  Houghtons' 
to  spend  Labor  Day  (she  would  not  go  without  him!). 
Perhaps  the  thing  that  gave  him  some  moments  of  for- 
getfulness  was  a  quite  different  irritation  which  he  felt 
when,  on  reaching  Green  Hill,  he  discovered  that  John 
Bennett,  too,  was  spending  Labor  Day  in  the  mountains. 
Johnny  had  come  he  said,  to  see  his  father.  ...  "I 
wouldn't  have  known  it  if  he  hadn't  mentioned  it!"  said 
Doctor  Bennett;  for,  Johnny  practically  lived  at  the 
Houghtons',  where  Edith  was  so  painstakingly  kind  to  him 
that  he  was  a  good  deal  discouraged ;  but  the  two  families 
made  pleasing  deductions!  Mary  Houghton  intimated  as 
much  to  Maurice. 

' '  What ! "  he  said.   ' '  Are  they  engaged  ? ' ' 

"Well,  no;  not  yet." 

There  was  a  little  pause;  then  Maurice  (this  was  one 
of  the  moments  when  he  forgot  Jacky's  future!)  said, 


265 

with  great  heartiness,  "Old  John's  in  luck!"  He  and 
Mrs.  Houghton  were  sitting  on  the  porch  in  that  somno- 
lent hour  after  dinner,  before  she  went  upstairs  to  take 
a  nap,  and  Maurice  should  go  over  to  the  Bennetts'  for 
singles  with  Johnny;  Eleanor  was  resting.  Out  on  the 
lawn  in  the  breezy  sun  and  shadow  under  the  tulip  tree, 
Edith,  fresh  from  a  shampoo,  was  reading.  Now  and 
then  she  tossed  her  head  like  a  colt,  to  make  her  fluffy  hair 
blow  about  in  a  glittering  brown  nimbus. 

Maurice  got  up  and  sauntered  over  to  her.  "Coming 
to  see  me  wallop  Johnny?" 

"Maybe;  if  my  horrid  old  hair  ever  dries." 

Maurice  looked  at  the  "horrid  old  hair,"  and  wished  he 
could  put  out  his  hand  and  touch  it.  He  was  faintly  sur- 
prised at  himself  that  he  didn't  do  it!  "How  mad  I  used 
to  make  her  when  I  pulled  her  hair!"  Now,  he  couldn't 
even  put  a  finger  on  it.  He  remembered  the  night  of  Lily's 
distracted  telegram,  when  he  had  taken  Edith  to  Fern 
Hill,  and  she  had  "bet  on  him,"  and  had  been  again, 
just  for  an  instant,  so  entirely  the  "little  girl"  of  their 
old  frank  past,  that  she  had  kissed  him!  "So,  why  can't 
I  touch  her  hair,  now?"  he  pondered;  "we  are  just  like 
brother  and  sister. "  But  he  knew  he  couldn't.  Aloud,  he 
said,  "Don't  be  lazy,  Skeezics,"  and  lounged  off  toward 
Doctor  Bennett's.  His  face  was  heavy. 

At  the  doctor's,  John,  sitting  on  a  gate  post,  waiting 
for  him,  yelled,  derisively :  "  You're  late !  'Fraid  of  getting 
walloped?  Where's  Buster?" 

"She's  forgotten  all  about  you.  Get  busy!"  Maurice 
commanded. 

They  played,  neither  of  them  with  much  zest,  and  both 
of  them  with  glances  toward  the  road.  The  walloping 
was  fairly  divided;  but  it  was  Maurice  who  gave  out  first, 
and  said  he  had  to  go  home.  ("Eleanor  '11  be  hunting  for 
me,  the  first  thing  I  know,"  he  thought.) 

"Tell  Edith  I'll  come  over  to-night,"  Johnny  called 
after  him. 

"I'm  not  carrying  billets-doux,"  Maurice  retorted.    "I 


266  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

suppose,"  he  thought,  listlessly,  "it  will  be  a  short  engage- 
ment." He  went  home  by  the  path  through  the  woods, 
and  halfway  back  Edith  met  him — the  shining  hair  dried, 
but  inclined  to  tumble  over  her  ears,  so  that  her  hat 
slipped  about  on  her  head.  She  said: 

"Johnny  lick  you?" 

"  Johnny?  No!  He's  not  up  to  it !"  They  both  grinned, 
and  Maurice  sat  down  on  a  wayside  log  to  put  a  knot  in  a 
"broken  shoestring.  Edith  sat  down,  too,  trying  to  keep 
her  hat  on,  and  cursing  (she  said)  the  unreliability  of  her 
hair.  The  shoestring  mended,  Maurice  batted  a  tall  fern 
with  his  racket. 

"Eleanor's  sort  of  forlorn,  Maurice?"  Edith  said. 

"Generally  is."  He  slashed  at  the  fern,  and  she  heard 
him  sigh.  "That  time  she  dragged  me  down  the  moun- 
tain took  it  out  of  her." 

Edith  nodded;  then  she  said,  with  her  straight  look: 
"You're  a  perfect  lamb,  Maurice!  You  are  awfully" — 
she  wanted  to  say  "patient,"  but  there  was  an  im- 
plication in  that;  so  she  said,  lamely  —  "nice  to 
Eleanor." 

"The  Lord  knows  I  ought  to  be!"  he  said,  cynically. 

"Yes;  she  just  about  killed  herself  to  save  you,"  Edith 
agreed, 

"Oh,  not  because  of  that!" 

The  misery  in  his  voice  startled  her;  she  said,  quickly, 
"How  do  you  mean,  Maurice?  I  don't  understand." 

"I  ought  to  be  'nice'  to  her." 

"But  you  are!  You  are!" 

"I'm  not." 

"Maurice,  I'm  awfully  fond  of  Eleanor;  you  won't 
think  I'm  finding  fault,  or  anything?  But  sometimes, 
when  she  doesn't  feel  very  well,  she — you —  I  mean,  you 
really  are  a  lamb,  Maurice!" 

Edith  was  twenty  that  summer — a  strong,  gay  crea- 
ture; but  her  old,  ridiculous,  incorrigible  candor  (and 
that  honest  kiss  in  the  darkness!)  made  her  still  a  child 
to  Maurice.  .  .  .  Yet  Johnny  Bennett  was  going  to  marry 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  267 

her! . . .  Maurice  rested  his  chin  on  his  left  fist,  and  batted 
the  fern;  then  he  said: 

"I've  been  infernally  mean  to  Eleanor.  It's  little  enough 
to  be  'nice,'  as  you  call  it,  now." 

She  flew  to  his  defense.  "Talk  sense!  You  never  did 
a  mean  thing  in  your  life." 

His  shrug  fired  her  into  a  frankness  which  she  regretted 
the  next  minute.  "Maurice,  you  are  too  good  for  Eleanor 
— or  anybody,"  she  ended,  hastily. 

He  gave  her  a  look  of  entreaty  for  understanding — 
though  he  knew,  he  thought,  that  in  her  ignorance  of  life 
she  couldn't  understand  even  if  she  had  been  told!  Yet 
for  the  mere  relief  of  speaking,  he  skirted  the  ugly  truth: 

"I  can't  be  too  patient  with  her  when  she's  forlorn,  be- 
cause I — I  haven't  played  the  game  with  her." 

"It's  up  to  her  to  forgive  that!" 

"She  doesn't  know  it." 

"Maurice!  You  haven't  a  secret  from  Eleanor?" 

Her  dismay  was  like  a  stab.  "Edith,  I  can't  help  it! 
It  was  a  long  time  ago — but  it  would  upset  her  to  know 
that  I'd — well,  failed  her  in  any  way."  His  face  was  so 
wrung  that  Edith  could  have  cried;  but  she  said  what  she 
thought: 

"Secrets  are  horrid,  Maurice.  You've  made  a  mistake." 

"A  'mistake'?"  He  almost  laughed  at  the  devilish 
humor  of  that  little  word  'mistake,'  as  applied  to  his 
ruined  life.  "Well,  yes,  Edith;  I  made  a  'mistake,'  all 
right." 

"Oh,  I  don't  mean  a  'mistake'  as  to  this  thing  you  say 
that  Eleanor  wouldn't  like,"  Edith  said.  "I  mean  not 
telling  her." 

He  shook  his  head;  with  that  nagging  thought  of  Jacky 
in  the  back  of  his  mind,  it  was  impossible  not  to  smile 
at  her  dogmatic  ignorance. 

"Because,"  Edith  explained,  "secrets  trip  you  into 
fibbing." 

"You  bet  they  do!   I'm  quite  an  accomplished  liar." 

Edith  did  not  smile;  she  spoke  with  impatient  earnest- 
18 


268  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

ness:  "That's  perfectly  silly;  you  are  not  a  liar!  You 
couldn't  lie  to  save  your  life,  and  you  know  it."  Maurice 
laughed.  "Why,  Maurice,  don't  you  suppose  I  know  you, 
through  and  through?  I  know  what  you  are! — a  'perfec' 
gentil  knight.'" 

She  laughed,  and  Maurice  threw  up  his  hands. 

"Bouquets,"  Edith  conceded,  grinning;  "but  I  won't 
hand  out  any  more,  so  you  needn't  fish!  Well,  I  don't 
know  what  on  earth  you've  done,  and  I  don't  care;  and 
you  can't  tell  me,  of  course!  But  one  thing  I  do  know;  it 
isn't  fair  to  Eleanor  not  to  tell  her,  because — " 

"  My  dear  child—  " 

"Because  she  wouldn't  really  mind,  she's  so  awfully 
devoted  to  you.  Oh,  Maurice,  do  tell  Eleanor!"  Then, 
even  as  she  spoke,  she  was  frightened;  what  was  this 
thing  that  he  did  not  dare  to  tell  Eleanor? — "or  me?" 
Edith  thought.  It  couldn't  be  that  Maurice — was  not 
good  ?  Edith  quailed  at  herself.  She  had  a  quick  impulse 
to  say,  "Forgive  me,  Maurice,  for  even  thinking  of  such 
a  horrid  thing!"  But  all  she  said,  aloud,  briefly,  was, 
"As  I  see  it,  telling  Eleanor  would  be  playing  the 
game." 

Maurice  put  his  hand  over  her  fist,  clenched  with  con- 
viction on  her  knee.  "Skeezics,"  he  said,  "you  are  the 
soundest  thing  the  Lord  ever  made!  As  it  happens,  it's 
a  thing  I  can't  talk  about — to  anybody.  But  I'll  never 
forget  this,  Edith.  And  .  .  .  dear,  I'm  glad  you're  going 
to  be  happy;  you  deserve  the  best  man  on  earth,  and  old 
Johnny  comes  mighty  darned  near  being  the  best!" 

Edith,  frowning,  rose  abruptly.  "Please  don't  talk 
that  way.  I  hate  that  sort  of  talk !  Johnny  is  my  friend ; 
that's  all.  So,  please  never — " 

"I  won't,"  Maurice  said,  meekly;  but  some  swift 
exultation  made  him  add  to  himself,  "Poor  old  Johnny!" 
His  face  was  radiant. 

As  for  Edith,  she  hardly  spoke  all  the  way  back  to  the 
house.  But  not  because  of  "poor  old  Johnny"!  She  was 
absorbed  by  that  intuition — which  she  did  not,  she  told 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  269 

herself,  believe.  Yet  it  clamored  in  her  mind:  Maurice 
had  done  something  wrong.  Something  so  wrong,  that  he 
couldn't  speak  of  it,  even  to  her!  Then  it  must  be — ? 
"No!  that's  impossible!"  But  with  this  recoil  from  a  dis- 
gusting impossibility,  came  an  upsurge  of  something  she 
had  never  felt  in  her  life — something  not  unlike  that 
emotion  she  had  once  called  Bingoism — a  resentful  con- 
sciousness that  Maurice  had  not  been  as  completely  and 
confidentially  her  friend  as  she  was  his! 

But  Edith  hadn't  a  mean  fiber  in  her!  Instantly,  on 
the  heels  of  that  small  pain  came  a  greater  and  nobler 
pain:  "I  can't  bear  it  if  he  has  done  anything  wrong! 
But  if  he  has,  it's  some  wicked  woman's  fault."  As  she 
said  that,  anger  at  an  injury  done  to  Maurice  made  her 
almost  forget  that  first  virginal  repulsion — and  made  her 
entirely  forget  that  fleeting  pain  of  knowing  that  she 
had  not  meant  as  much  to  him  as  he  meant  to  her!  "But 
he  hasn't  done  anything  wrong,"  she  insisted ;  "  he  wouldn't 
look  at  a  horrid  woman!" 

"For  Heaven's  sake,  Edith,"  Maurice  remonstrated; 
"this  isn't  any  Marathon!  Go  slow.  I'm  not  in  any 
hurry  to  get  home." 

"I  am,"  Edith  said,  briefly.  She  was  in  a  great  hurry! 
She  wanted  to  be  alone,  and  argue  to  herself  that  she  had 
been  guilty  of  a  dreadful  disloyalty  to  him.  .  .  .  "Mau- 
rice ?  Why !  He  would  be  the  last  man  in  the  world  to — 
to  do  thai, — darling  old  Maurice!  He  has  simply  had  a 
crush  on  somebody,  and  likes  her  better  than  he  likes 
Eleanor — or  me;  but  that's  nothing.  Eleanor  deserves  it; 
and  very  likely  I  do,  too!  But  he's  so  frightfully  honor- 
able about  Eleanor — he's  a  perfect  crank  on  honor! — 
that  he  blames  himself  for  even  that."  By  this  time  the 
possibility  that  the  unknown  somebody  was  "horrid" 
had  become  unthinkable;  she  was  probably  terribly  at- 
tractive, and  Maurice  had  a  crush  on  ...  "though,  of 
course,  she  can't  be  really  nice,"  Edith  thought ;  "Maurice 
simply  doesn't  see  through  her.  Boys  are  so  stupid!  They 
don't  know  girls."  Again  there  was  a  Bingo  moment  of 


27o  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

hot  dislike  for  the  "girl,"  whoever  she  was! — and  she 
walked  faster  and  faster. 

Maurice,  striding  along  beside  her,  was  thinking  of  the 
irony  of  the  "bouquet"  she  had  thrown  at  him,  and  the 
innocence  of  that  "Tell  Eleanor"!  "What  a  child  she  is 
still!  And  she's  not  in  love  with  Johnny — "  He  didn't 
understand  his  exhilaration  when  he  said  that,  but,  except 
when  he  reproached  her  for  tearing  ahead,  it  kept  him 
silent.  .  .  . 

Supper  was  ready  when  they  got  home,  so  Edith  had 
no  chance  to  be  solitary,  and  after  supper  Johnny  Bennett 
dropped  in.  When  he  took  his  reluctant  departure  ("Con- 
found [him!"  Maurice  thought,  impatiently,  "he  has  on 
his  sitting  breeches  to-night!")  Maurice  told  Edith  to 
come  into  the  garden  with  him,  and  listen  to  the  evening 
primroses;  "They  'blossom  with  a  silken  burst  of  sound* 
— they  do! "  he  insisted,  for  she  jeered  at  the  word  "listen." 

"They  don't ! "  she  said,  and  ran  down  the  steps,  flitting 
ahead  of  him  in  the  dusk  like  a  white  moth.  In  their 
preoccupation,  they  neither  of  them  looked  at  Eleanor, 
sitting  silently  on  the  porch  between  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Houghton.  They  went,  between  the  box  hedges,  to  the 
primrose  border,  and  Maurice  quoted: 

"Silent  they  stood  .  .  . 

Hand  clasped  in  hand,  in  breathless  hush  around! 
And  saw  her  shyly  doff  her  soft  green  hood, 
And  blossom — with  a  silken  burst  of  sound! 

Let's  clasp  hands,"  Maurice  suggested. 

"No,  thank  you,"  said  Edith.  And  so  they  watched 
and  listened.  A  tightly  twisted  bud  loosened  half  a  petal — 
then  another  half — and  another — until  it  was  all  a  shim- 
mering whorl  of  petals,  each  caught  at  one  side  to  the 
honeyed  crosspiece  of  the  pistil;  then:  "There!"  said 
Maurice.  "Did  you  hear  it?" — all  the  silken  disks  were 
loose,  and  the  flower  cup,  silver-gilt,  spilled  its  fragrance 
into  the  stillness! 

"It  was  the  dream  of  a  sound,"  she  admitted. 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  271 

Her  voice  was  a  dream  sound,  too,  he  thought;  a  word- 
less tenderness  for  her  flooded  his  mind,  as  the  perfume 
of  the  primroses  flooded  the  night.  It  seemed  as  if  the 
lovely  ignorance  of  her  was  itself  a  perfume!  "'Tell 
Eleanor ' !  She  doesn't  know  the  wickedness  of  the  world, 
and  I  don't  want  her  to. "  He  put  his  hand  on  her  shoulder 
in  the  old,  brotherly  way — but  drew  it  back  as  if  some- 
thing had  burned  him !  That  recoil  should  have  revealed 
things  to  him,  but  it  didn't.  So  far  as  his  own  conscious- 
ness went,  he  was  too  intent  on  what  he  called  "the  square 
deal"  for  Eleanor,  to  know  what  had  happened  to  him; 
all  he  knew  was  that  Edith,  all  of  a  sudden,  was  grown  up ! 
Her  childishness  was  gone.  He  mustn't  even  put  his  hand 
on  her  shoulder!  He  had  an  uneasy  moment  "of  wonder- 
ing— "Girls  are  so  darned  knowing,  nowadays!" — whether 
she  might  be  suspicious  as  to  what  that  secret  was, 
which  she  had  advised  him  to  "tell  Eleanor"?  But  that 
was  only  for  a  moment;  "Edith's  not  that  kind  of  a  girl. 
And,  anyway,  she'd  never  think  of  such  a  thing  of  me — 
which  makes  me  all  the  more  rotten!"  So  he  clutched 
at  Edith's  undeserved  faith  in  him,  and  said,  "She'll 
never  think  of  that."  Still,  she  was  grown  up  ...  and  he 
mustn't  touch  her.  (This  was  one  of  the  times  when  he 
was  not  worrying  about  Jacky!) 

Edith,  talking  animatedly  of  primroses,  had  her  absorb- 
ing thoughts,  too;  they  were  nothing  but  furious  denial! 
" Maurice — horrid?  Never!"  Then,  on  the  very  breath  of 
" Never,"  came  again  the  insistent  reminder:  "But  he 
could  tell  me  anything,  except — "  So,  thinking  of  just 
one  thing,  and  talking  of  many  other  things,  she  walked 
up  and  down  the  primrose  path  with  Maurice.  They 
neither  of  them  wanted  to  go  back  to  the  three  older 
people:  the  father  and  mother — and  wife. 

Eleanor,  on  the  porch,  strained  her  eyes  into  the  dusk; 
now  and  then  she  caught  a  glimmer  of  the  dim  whiteness 
of  Edith's  skirt,  or  heard  Maurice's  voice.  She  was  suffer- 
ing so  that  by  and  by  she  said,  briefly,  to  her  hosts — her 
V^ice  trembling  with  unshed  tears — "Good  night,"  and 


272  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

went  upstairs,  alone — an  old,  crying  woman.  Eleanor  had 
been  unreasonable  many  times;  but  this  time  she  was  not 
unreasonable!  That  night  anyone  could  have  seen  that 
she  was,  to  Maurice,  as  nonexistent  as  any  other  elderly 
woman  might  have  been.  The  Houghtons  saw  it,  and 
when  she  went  into  the  house  Mary  Houghton  said,  with 
distress : 

"She  suffers!" 

Her  husband  nodded,  and  said  he  wished  he  was 
asleep.  "Why,"  he  demanded,  "are  women  greater  fools 
about  this  business  than  men?  Poor  Maurice  ventures 
to  talk  to  Edith  of  'shoes  and  ships  and  sealing  wax,' — 
and  Eleanor  weeps!  Why  are  there  more  jealous  women 
than  men?" 

"Because,"  Mary  Houghton  said,  dryly,  "more  men 
give  cause  for  jealousy  than  women." 

"Tcntcht!  Touche"!"  he  conceded;  then  added,  quickly, 
"But  Maurice  isn't  giving  any  cause." 

"Well,  I'm  not  so  sure,"  she  said. 

Up  in  her  own  room,  Eleanor,  sitting  in  the  dark  by  the 
open  window,  stared  out  into  the  leafy  silence  of  the 
night.  Once,  down  in  the  garden,  Maurice  laughed ; — and 
she  struck  her  clenched  hand  on  her  forehead : 

"I  can't  bear  it!"  she  said,  gaspingly,  aloud;  "I  can't 
bear  it — she  interests  him!"  His  pleasure  in  Edith's  mind 
was  a  more  scorching  pain  to  her  than  the  thought  of 
Lily's  body.  .  .  . 

Later,  when  Maurice*"and  Edith  came  up  from  the 
garden  darkness,  they  found  a  deserted  porch.  "Let's 
talk,"  he  said,  eagerly. 

Edith  shook  her  head.  "Too  sleepy,"  she  said,  and  ran 
upstairs.  He  called  after  her,  "Quitter!"  But  it  provoked 
no  retort,  and  he  would  have  gone  back  to  walk  up  and 
down  alone,  by  the  primroses,  and  worry  over  Jacky's 
future,  if  a  melancholy  voice  had  not  come  from  the 
window  of  their  room:  "Maurice.  .  .  .  It's  twelve 
o'clock."  And  he  followed  Edith  indoors.  .  .  . 

Edith  had  been  sharply  anxious  to  be  by  herself.    She 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  273 

could  not  sit  on  the  porch  with  Maurice,  and  not  burst 
out  and  tell  him — what?  Tell  him  that  nothing  he  had 
done  could  make  the  slightest  difference  to  her!  "He 
has  probably  met  some  awfully  nice  girl  and  likes  her — a 
good  deal.  As  for  there  being  anything  wrong,  I  don't 
believe  it!  That  would  be  horrible.  I'm  a  beast  to  have 
thought  of  such  a  thing!"  She  decided  to  put  it  out  of 
her  mind,  and  went  to  her  desk,  saying,  "I'll  straighten 
out  my  accounts. ' ' 

She  began,  resolutely;  added  up  one  column,  and  sub- 
tracted the  total  from  another;  said:  "Gosh!  I'm  out 
thirty  dollars!"  nibbled  the  end  of  her  pen,  and  reflected 
that  she  would  have  to  work  on  her  father's  sympathies; — 
then,  suddenly,  her  pen  still  in  her  hand,  she  sat  motionless. 

"Even  if  there  was  anything — bad,  I'd  forgive  him. 
He's  a  lamb!"  But  as  she  spoke,  childishness  fell  away — 
she  was  a  deeply  distressed  woman.  Maurice  was  suffering. 
And  she  knew,  in  spite  of  her  assertions  to  the  contrary, 
that  it  wasn't  because  of  any  slight  thing;  any  "crush" 
on  a  girl — nice  or  otherwise !  He  was  suffering  because  he 
had  done  wrong — and  she  couldn't  tear  downstairs  and 
say:  "Maurice,  never  mind!  I  love  you  just  as  much; 
I  don't  care  what  you've  done!"  Why  couldn't  she  say 
that?  Why  couldn't  she  go  now,  and  sit  on  the  porch 
steps  beside  him,  and  say — anything?  She  got  up  and 
began  to  walk  about  the  room;  her  heart  was  beating 
smotheringly.  "Why  shouldn't  I  tell  him  I  love  him  so 
that  I'd  forgive — anything?  He  knows  I've  always  loved 
him! — next  to  father  and  mother.  Why  can't  I  tell  him 
so,  now?"  Then  something  in  her  breast,  beating  like 
wings,  made  her  know  why  she  couldn't  tell  him! 

"I  love  him;  that's  why. " 

After  a  while  she  said:  "There's  nothing  wrong  in  it. 
I  have  a  right  to  love  him!  He'll  never  know.  How 
funny  that  I  never  knew — until  to-night!  Yet  I've  felt 
this  way  for  ever  so  long.  I  think  since  that  time  at  Fern 
Hill,  when  he  was  so  bothered  and  wouldn't  tell  me  what 
was  the  matter."  Yes;  it  was  strange  that  now,  when 


274  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

some  stabbing  instinct  had  made  her  know  that  Maurice 
was  not  her  "perfec'  gentil  knight,"  that  same  instinct 
should  make  her  know  that  she  loved  him!  .  ,  .  Not 
with  the  old  love;  not  with  the  love  that  could  overflow 
into  words,  the  love  that  had  kissed  him  when  he  had  been 
"bothered"!  "I  can  never  kiss  him  again,"  she  thought. 
She  did  not  love  him,  now,  "next  to  father  and  mother — 
dear  darlings!"  And  when  she  said  that,  Edith  knew  that 
the  "darlings"  were  of  her  past.  "I  love  them  next  to 
Maurice,"  she  thought,  smiling  faintly.  "Well,  he  will 
never  know  it!  Nobody  will  ever  know  it.  ...  I'll  just 
keep  on  loving  him  as  long  as  I  live."  She  had  no  doubt 
about  that ;  and  she  did  not  drop  into  the  self-conscious- 
ness of  saying,  "I  am  wronging  Eleanor."  That,  to  Edith, 
would  not  have  been  sense.  She  knew  that  she  was  not 
"wronging"  anyone.  As  for  the  unknown  girl,  who,  per- 
haps, had  "wronged"  Eleanor,  and  about  whom,  now, 
Maurice  was  so  ashamed  and  so  repentant — she  was  of  no 
consequence  anyhow.  "Of  course  she  is  bad,"  Edith 
thought,  "and  the  whole  thing  was  her  fault!"  But  it  was 
in  the  past;  he  had  said  so.  "He  said  it  was  long  ago. 
If,"  she  thought,  "he  did  run  crooked,  why,  I'm  sorry 
for  poor  Eleanor;  and  he  ought  to  tell  her;  there's  no 
question  about  that!  It's  wrong  not  to  tell  her.  And  of 
course  he  couldn't  tell  me.  That  wouldn't  be  square  to 
Eleanor!  .  .  .  But  I  hate  to  have  him  so  unhappy. .  .  . 
No;  it's  right  for  him  to  be  unhappy.  He  ought  to  be! 
It  would  be  dreadful  if  he  wasn't.  But,  somehow,  the 
thing  itself  doesn't  seem  to  touch  me.  I  love  him.  I  am 
going  to  love  him  all  I  want  to!  But  no  one  will  ever 
know  it." 

By  and  by  she  knelt  down  and  prayed,  just  one  word: 
"Maurice."    She  was  not  unhappy. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

TOURING  the  next  two  days  at  Green  Hill,  Eleanor's 
I—/  dislike  of  Edith  had  no  chance  to  break  into  silent 
flames,  for  the  girl  was  so  quiet  that  not  even  Eleanor 
could  see  anything  in  her  behavior  to  Maurice  to  criticize. 
It  was  Maurice  who  did  the  criticizing! 

"Edith,  come  down  into  the  garden;  I  want  to  read 
something  to  you." 

"Can't.    Have  to  write  letters." 

"Edith,  if  you'll  come  into  the  studio  I'll  play  you 
something  I've  patched  up." 

"I'm  a  heathen  about  music.  Let's  sit  with  Eleanor." 

"Skeezics,  what's  the  matter  with  you?  Why  won't 
you  come  and  walk?  You're  getting  lazy  in  your  old  age!" 

"Busy,"  Edith  said,  vaguely. 

At  this  point  Maurice  insisted,  and  Edith  sneaked  out 
to  the  back  entry  and  telephoned  Johnny  Bennett :  "Come 
over,  lazybones,  and  take  some  exercise!" 

John  came,  with  leaps  and  bounds,  so  to  speak,  and  Mau- 
rice said,  grumpily : 

"What  do  you  lug  Johnny  in  for?" 

So,  during  the  rest  of  her  visit  (with  John  Bennett  as 
Maurice's  chaperon!)  Eleanor  merely  ached  with  dislike 
of  Edith;  but,  even  so,  she  had  the  small  relief  of  not 
having  to  say  to  herself:  "Is  he  seeing  Mrs.  Dale,  now? 
.  .  .  Did  he  go  to  her  house  yesterday?"  Of  course,  as 
soon  as  she  went  back  to  Mercer  those  silent  questions 
began  again;  and  her  audible  question  nagged  Maurice 
whenever  he  was  in  the  house :  ' '  Did  you  go  to  the  theater 
last  night?  ....  Yes?  Did  you  go  alone?  .  .  .  Will  you 
be  home  to-night  to  dinner?  .  .  .  No?  Where  are  you 
going?" 


276  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

Maurice,  answering  with  bored  patience,  thought,  with 
tender  amusement,  of  Edith's  advice,  "Tell  Eleanor." 
How  little  she  knew ! 

He  did  not  see  Edith  very  often  that  next  winter, 
"which  is  just  as  well,"  he  thought.  But  his  analysis 
stopped  there;  he  did  not  ask  himself  why  it  was  just  as 
well.  She  made  flying  visits  to  Mercer,  for  shopping  or 
luncheons,  so  he  had  glimpses  of  her,  and  whenever  he 
saw  her  he  was  conscious  of  a  little  wistful  change  in  her, 
for  she  was  shy  with  him — Edith,  shy ! — and  much  gentler. 
When  they  discussed  the  Eternities  or  the  ball  game,  she 
never  pounded  his  arm  with  an  energetic  and  dissenting 
fist,  nor  was  there  ever  the  faintest  suggestion  of  the 
sexless  "rough-house"  of  their  old  jokes!  As  for  coming 
to  town,  she  explained  that  she  was  too  busy;  she  had 
taken  the  burden  of  housekeeping  from  her  mother,  and 
she  was  doing  a  good  deal  of  hard  reading  preparatory 
to  a  course  of  technical  training  in  domestic  science,  to 
which  she  was  looking  forward  when  she  could  find  time 
for  it.  But  whenever  she  did  come  to  Mercer,  she  did 
her  duty  by  rushing  in  to  see  Eleanor!  Eleanor's  criti- 
cisms of  her,  when  she  rushed  out  again,  always  made 
Maurice  silently,  but  deeply,  irritated.  The  criticisms 
lessened  in  the  fall,  because  Eleanor  had  the  pitiful  pre- 
occupation of  watching  poor  Don  O'Brien  fade  out  of  the 
world;  and  when  he  had  gone  she  had  to  push  her  own 
misery  aside  while  his  grandmother's  heart  broke  into  the 
meager  tears  of  age  upon  her  "Miss  Eleanor's"  breast. 
But,  besides  that,  she  did  not  have  the  opportunity  to 
criticize  Edith,  for  the  Houghtons  went  abroad. 

So  the  rest  of  that  year  went  dully  by.  To  Eleanor,  it 
was  a  time  of  spasmodic  effort  to  regain  Maurice's  love; 
spasmodic,  because  when  she  had  visions — hideous  visions ! 
of  Maurice  and  the  "other  woman," — then,  her  aspira- 
tions to  regain  his  love,  which  had  been  born  in  that 
agony  of  recognized  complicity  in  his  faithlessness,  would 
shrivel  up  in  the  vehement  flame  of  jealousy.  To  Maurice, 
it  was  a  time  of  endurance;  of  vague  thoughts  of  Edith, 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  277 

but  of  no  mental  disloyalty  to  his  wife.  Its  only  bright- 
ness lay  in  those  rare  visits  to  Medfield,  when  Jacky 
looked  at  him  like  a  worshiping  puppy,  and  asked  forty 
thousand  questions  which  he  couldn't  answer!  They 
were  very  careful  visits,  made  only  when  Maurice  was 
sure  Eleanor  would  not  be  going  to  "look  for  a  cook." 
He  always  balanced  his  brief  pleasure  of  an  hour  with 
his  little  boy  by  an  added  gentleness  to  his  wife — per- 
haps a  bunch  of  violets,  bought  at  the  florist's  on  Maple 
Street  where  Lily  got  her  flower  pots  or  her  bulbs.  He 
was  very  lonely,  and  increasingly  bothered  about  Jacky. 
.  .  .  "Lily  will  let  him  go  plumb  to  hell.  But  I  put 
him  on  the  toboggan!  ...  I'm  responsible  for  his  ex- 
istence," he  used  to  think.  And  sometimes  he  repeated 
the  words  he  had  spoken  that  night  when  he  had  felt  the 
first  stir  of  fatherhood,  "My  little  Jacky." 

He  would  hardly  have  said  he  loved  the  child;  love 
had  come  so  gradually,  that  he  had  not  recognized  it! 
Yet  it  had  come.  It  had  been  added  to  those  other  intima- 
tions of  God,  which  also  he  had  not  recognized.  Personal 
Joy  on  his  wedding  day  had  been  the  first;  and  the  next 
had  come  when  he  looked  up  at  the  heights  of  Law 
among  the  stars,  and  then  there  had  been  the  terrifying 
vision  of  the  awfulness  of  Life,  at  Jacky 's  birth.  Now,  into 
his  soul,  arid  with  long  untruth,  came  this  flooding  in  of 
Love — which  in  itself  is  Life,  and  Joy,  and  the  fulfilling  of 
Law!  Or,  as  he  had  said,  once,  carelessly,  "Call  it  God." 

This  pursuing  God,  this  inescapable  God!  was  making 
him  acutely  uncomfortable  now,  about  Jacky.  Maurice 
felt  the  discomfort,  but  he  did  not  recognize  it  as  Salva- 
tion, or  know  Whose  mercy  sent  it !  He  merely  did  what 
most  of  us  do  when  we  suffer:  he  gave  the  credit  of  his 
pain  to  the  devil — not  to  Infinite  Love.  "Oh,"  the  poor 
fellow  thought,  coming  back  one  day  from  a  call  at  the 
little  secret  house  on  Maple  Street,  "the  devil's  getting  his 
money's  worth  out  of  me;  well,  I  won't  squeal  about 
that!  But  he's  getting  his  money's  worth  out  of  my  boy, 
too.  She's  ruining  him !" 


278  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

He  said  this  once  when  he  had  been  rather  recklessly 
daring  in  seeing  "his  boy."  It  was  Saturday  afternoon, 
and  Jacky  was  free  from  his  detested  school.  Maurice 
had  given  him  a  new  sled,  and  then  had  "fallen,"  as  he 
expressed  it,  to  the  little  fellow's  entreaty:  "Mr.  Curtis, 
if  you'll  come  up  to  the  hill,  I'll  show  you  how  she'll  go!" 
But  before  they  started  Maurice  had  a  disagreeable  five 
minutes  with  Lily.  She  had  told  him,  tears  of  laughter 
running  down  her  rosy  cheeks,  of  some  performance  of 
Jacky 's.  He  had  asked  her,  she  said,  about  his  paw; 
"and  I  said  his  name  was  Mr.  George  Dale,  and  he  died 
ten  or  eleven  years  ago  of  consumption — had  to  tell  him 
something,  you  know!  An'  he  says, — he's  great  on  arith- 
metic,— 'Poor  paw!'  he  says,  'how  many  years  was  that 
before  I  was  born  ? '  I  declare,  I  was  all  balled  up ! "  Then, 
as  she  wiped  her  laughing  eyes,  she  had  grown  suddenly 
angry:  "I'm  going  to  take  him  away  from  his  new  Sun- 
day school ;  the  teacher — it  was  her  did  the  Paul  Pry  act, 
and  asked  him  about  his  father; — well,  I  guess  she  ain't 
much  of  a  lady ;  I  never  see  her  name  in  the  Sunday  papers ; 
— she  came  down  on  Jacky  because  he  told  her  a '  lie ' ;  that's 
what  she  called  it,  'a  lie'!  Said  he'd  go  to  hell  if  he  told 
lies.  I  said,  'I  won't  have  you  threatening  my  child!' 
I  declare  I  felt  like  saying,  '  You  go  to  hell  yourself ! '  but 
of  course  I  don't  say  things  that  ain't  refined." 

"Well,  but  Lily,  the  little  beggar  must  tell  the  truth—" 

"Mr.  Curtis,  Jacky  didn't  say  anything  but  what  you 
or  me  would  say  a  dozen  times  a  day.  He  just  told  her  he 
hadn't  a  library  book  out,  when  he  had.  Seems  he  forgot 
to  bring  it  back,  so,  'course,  he  just  said  he  hadn't  any 
book.  Well,  this  teacher,  she  put  the  lie  onto  him.  It's  a 
vulgar  word,  'lie.'  And  as  for  hell,  they  say  society  people 
don't  believe  there  is  such  a  place  any  more." 

When  he  and  his  little  son  walked  away  (Jacky  dragging 
his  magnificent  sled),  Maurice  was  nervously  anxious  to 
counteract  such  views. 

"Jacobus,"  he  said,  "I'm  going  to  tell  you  something: 
Big  men  never  say  anything  that  isn't  so !  Do  you  get  on 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  279 

to  that ? "  (In  his  own  mind  he  added,  "I'm  a  sweet  person 
to  tell  him  that ! ")  "Promise  me  you'll  never  say  anything 
that  isn't  just  exactly  so,"  said  Maurice. 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  Jacky.  "Say,  Mr.  Curtis,  have  you  got 
teeth  you  can  take  out?"  When  Maurice  said,  rather 
absently,  that  he  had  not,  Jacky 's  dismay  was  pathetic. 
"Why,  maw  can  do  that,"  he  said,  reproachfully.  It  was 
the  first  flaw  in  his  idol.  It  took  several  minutes  to 
recover  from  the  shock  of  disappointment;  then  he  said: 
"Lookee  here!"  He  paused  beside  a  hydrant,  and  with 
his  mittened  hand  broke  off  a  long  icicle,  held  it  up  and 
turned  it  about  so  that  the  sun  flashed  on  it.  "Handsome, 
ain't  it?"  he  asked,  timidly. 

Maurice  said  yes,  it  was  "handsome"; — "but  suppose 
you  say  'isn't  it'  instead  of  'ain't  it.'  'Ain't'  is  not  a  nice 
word.  And  remember  what  I  told  you  about  telling  the 
truth." 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  Jacky,  and  trudged  along,  pulling  his 
sled  with  one  hand  and  carrying  his  icicle  in  the  other. 

After  this  paternal  effort,  Maurice  stood  in  the  snow 
watching  the  crowd  of  children — red-cheeked,  shrill- 
voiced — sliding  down  Winpole  Hill  and  yelling  and  snow- 
balling each  other  as  they  pulled  their  sleds  up  to  the 
top  of  the  slope  again.  It  was  during  one  of  these  panting 
tugs  uphill,  that  Jacky  saw  fit  to  slap  a  fellow  coaster, 
a  little,  snub-nosed  girl  with  a  sniffling  cold  in  her  head, 
and  all  muffled  up  in  dirty  scarves.  Instantly  Maurice, 
striding  in  among  the  children,  took  his  son  by  the  arm, 
and  said,  sharply: 

' '  Young  man,  apologize !  Quick!  Or  I'll  take  you  home !" 

Jacky  gaped.    ' ' ' Pol'gize  ? ' ' 

"Say  you're  sorry !  Out  with  it.  Tell  the  little  girl  you're 
sorry  you  hit  her." 

"But  I  ain't,"  Jacky  explained,  anxiously;  "an'  you 
said  I  mustn't  say  what  ain't  so." 

"Well,  tell  her  you  won't  do  it  again,"  Maurice  com- 
manded, evading,  as  perplexed  fathers  must,  moral  con- 
tradictions. 


28o  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

Jacky,  bewildered,  said  to  his  howling  playmate,  "I 
don't  like  you,  but  I  won't  Kit  you  again,  'less  I  have  to; 
then  I'll  lick  the  tar  out  of  you!"  He  paused,  rummaged 
in  his  pocket,  produced  a  horrid  precious  little  gray  lump 
of  something,  and  handed  it  to  her.  "Gum,"  he  said, 
briefly. 

Maurice,  taking  another  step  into  paternal  wisdom, 
was  deaf  to  the  statute  of  limitation  in  the  apology;  but 
walking  home  with  the  little  boy,  he  said  to  himself, 
"She's  ruining  him!"  and  fell  into  such  moody  silence 
that  he  didn't  even  notice  Jacky's  obedient  struggles  with 
"isn't."  Once,  a  week  later,  as  a  result  of  this  experience, 
he  tried  to  make  some  ethical  suggestions  to  Lily.  She 
was  displaying  her  latest  triumph — a  rosebush,  blossoming 
in  February!  And  Maurice,  duly  admiring  the  glowing 
flower,  against  its  background  of  soot-speckled  snowdrift 
on  the  window  sill,  began  upon  Jacky's  morals.  Lily's 
good-humored  face  hardened. 

"Mr.  Curtis,  you  don't  need  to  worry  about  Jacky! 
He  don't  steal,  and  he  don't  swear, — much;  and  he's 
never  been  pinched,  and  he's  awful  handsome;  and,  my 
God !  what  more  do  you  want  ?  I  ain't  going  to  make  his 
life  miserable  by  tellin'  him  to  talk  grammar,  or  do  the 
polite  act!" 

"Lily,  I  only  mean  I  want  him  to  turn  out  well,  and  he 
won't  unless  he  tells  the  truth — 

"He'll  turn  out  good.  You  needn't  worry.  Anybody's 
got  to  have  sense  about  telling  the  truth;  you  can't  just 
plunk  everything  out!  I — I  believe  I'll  go  and  live  in 
New  York." 

Instantly  Maurice  was  silenced.  "She  mustn't  take 
him  away!"  he  thought,  despairingly. 

His  fear  that  she  would  do  so  was  a  constant  worry.  .  .  . 
His  work  in  the  Weston  real-estate  office  involved  occa- 
sional business  trips  of  a  few  days,  and  his  long  hours  on 
trains  were  filled  with  this  increasing  anxiety  about  Jacky. 
"  If  she  takes  him  away  from  Mercer,  and  I  can't  ever  see 
him,  nothing  can  save  him !  But,  damn  it !  what  can  I  do  ? " 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  281 

he  would  say.  He  tried  to  reassure  himself  by  count- 
ing up  Lily's  good  points;  her  present  uprightness;  her 
honest  friendliness  to  him;  her  almost  insane  devotion  to 
Jacky,  and  her  pathetic  aspiration  for  respectability,  which 
was  summed  up  in  that  one  word  of  collective  emptiness, — 
"Society."  But  immediately  her  bad  points  clamored  in 
his  mind;  her  ignorance  and  unmorality  and  vulgarity. 
"Truth  is  just  a  matter  of  expediency  with  her.  If  he 
gets  to  be  a  liar,  I'll  boot  him!"  Maurice  would  think  of 
these  bad  points  until  he  got  perfectly  frantic !  His  sense 
of  wanting  advice  was  like  an  ache  in  his  mind — for  there 
was  no  one  who  could  advise  him.  Then,  quite  unex- 
pectedly, advice  came.  .  .  . 

In  the  fall  the  Houghtons  got  back  from  Europe. 
Maurice  saw  them  only  between  trains  in  Mercer,  for 
Henry  Houghton  was  in  a  great  hurry  to  get  up  to  Green 
Hill,  and  Edith,  too,  was  exercised  about  her  trunks 
and  the  unpacking  of  her  treasures  of  reminiscence.  But 
Mrs.  Houghton  said:  "We  shall  be  coming  down  to  do 
some  shopping  before  Christmas.  No!  We'll  not  inflict 
ourselves  upon  Eleanor!  We'll  go  to  the  hotel;  you  will 
both  take  dinner  with  us." 

They  came,  and  Maurice  and  Eleanor  dined  with  them, 
as  Mrs.  Houghton  had  insisted  that  they  should;  but 
only  Mrs.  Houghton  accepted  Eleanor's  repaying  hospi- 
tality. 

"Mother  has  virtue  enough  for  the  family,"  Edith  said; 
"I'm  going  to  stay  here  with  father." 

"It  will  be  a  jewel  in  your  crown,"  Henry  Houghton 
told  his  Mary. 

"Why  not  collect  jewels  for  your  crown?"  she  inquired. 
"Henry,  Maurice  looks  troubled.  What  do  you  suppose  is 
the  matter?" 

"He  does  look  seedy,"  he  agreed;  "poke  about  and  find 
out  what's  wrong.  You  can  do  it  better  if  your  inelegant 
offspring  isn't  around,  and  if  I'm  not  there,  either.  He 
won't  open  his  lips  to  me!  I  think  it's  money.  He's  car- 
rying a  pretty  heavy  load.  But  he  never  peeps.  ...  I 


282  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

wish  he  wouldn't  economize  on  cigars,  though;  he  offered 
me  one  yesterday,  and  politeness  compelled  me  to  smoke 
it!" 

'"Peeps'!"  said  Edith;  "how  elegant!" 

So  that  was  how  it  happened  that  Mary  Houghton 
went  alone  to  dine  with  Maurice  and  Eleanor.  But  she 
couldn't  discover,  in  Maurice's  talk  or  Eleanor's  silences, 
any  hint  of  financial  anxiety.  "So,"  she  said  to  herself, 
"it  isn't  money  that  worries  him."  When  he  walked  back 
with  her  to  the  hotel  after  dinner,  he  was  thinking,  "She'd 
know  what  to  do  about  Jacky."  But  of  course  he  couldn't 
ask  her  what  to  do !  He  could  never  ask  anybody — except, 
perhaps,  Mr.  Houghton;  and  what  would  he,  an  old  man, 
know  about  bringing  up  a  little  boy?  He  was  listening, 
not  very  closely,  to  Mrs.  Houghton 's  talk  of  the  Custom 
House;  but  when  she  said,  "John  Bennett  met  us  on  the 
dock,"  he  was  suddenly  attentive. 

"Has  Edith—?"  he  began. 

She  laughed  ruefully.  "No.  Young  people  are  not  what 
they  were  in  my  day.  Edith  is  not  a  bit  sentimental." 

Maurice  was  silent.  When  they  reached  the  hotel, 
they  went  upstairs  into  a  vast,  bleak  parlor,  and  steered 
their  way  among  enormous  plush  armchairs  to  a  sofa. 
A  few  electric  bulbs,  glaring  among  the  glass  prisms  of  a 
remote  chandelier,  made  a  dim  light — but  not  too  dim  for 
Mary  Houghton  to  see  that  Maurice's  face  was  drawn  and 
worried;  involuntarily  she  said: 

"You  dear  boy,  I  wish  you  didn't  look  so  careworn!" 

"I'm  bothered  about  something,"  he  said. 

"Your  uncle  Henry  told  me  to  'poke  around,'  and  see 
if  you  were  troubled  about  money?"  she  said,  smiling. 

"Oh,  not  especially.  I'm  always  more  or  less  strapped. 
But  money  isn't  worth  bothering  about,  really." 

"If  you  'consider  the  stars,'  you  will  find  very  few 
things  are  worth  bothering  about!  Except,  of  course, 
wrongdoing." 

And,  to  his  own  astonishment,  he  found  himself  saying, 
"J'xa  afraid  that's  where  I  come  in!"  As  he  spoke,  he 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  283 

remembered  that  night  of  the  eclipse — oh,  those  moon- 
washed  depths,  those  stupendous  serenities  of  Law  and 
Beauty  which,  together,  are  Truth !  How  passionately  he 
had  desired  Truth.  And  now  Mrs.  Houghton  was  saying 
"Consider  the  stars."  "If  I  could  only  tell  her!"  he 
thought. 

"If  the  wrongdoing  is  behind  you,"  said  Mary  Hough- 
ton,  "let  it  go." 

"It  won't  let  me  go,"  he  said,  with  nervous  lightness. 
"Though  it's  behind  me,  all  right!" 

Which  made  her  say,  gently,  "Maurice,  perhaps  I  know 
what  troubles  you?"  His  start  made  her  add,  quickly: 
"Your  uncle  Henry  has  never  betrayed  your  confidence; 
but  ...  I  guessed,  long  ago,  that  something  had  gone 
wrong.  I  don't  know  how  wrong — " 

"Oh,  Mrs.  Houghton,"  he  said,  despairingly,  "awfully 
wrong!  Awfully — awfully  wrong!"  He  put  his  elbow  on 
his  knee,  and  rested  his  chin  on  his  clenched  fist;  she  was 
silent.  Then  he  said:  "You've  always  been  an  angel  to 
me.  I  am  glad  you  guessed.  Becaiuse — I  don't  know 
what  to  do." 

"About  the  woman?" 

"No.    The  boy." 

"Oh!"  she  said;  "a  child/" 

Her  dismay  was  like  a  blow.  "But  you  said  you  had 
'guessed'?" 

"I  guessed  that  there  was  a  woman;  but  I  didn't 
know — "  She  put  her  arm  over  his  shoulders  and  kissed 
him.  "My  poor  Maurice!"  The  tears  stood  in  her  eyes. 

"I  told  you  it  was  'awful,'"  he  said,  simply;  "yes,  it 
is  my  little  boy;  I'm  worried  to  death  about  him.  Lily — 
that's  her  name — is  perfectly  all  right;  she  means  well, 
and  adores  him,  and  all  that;  but — "  Then  he  told  her 
what  Jacky's  mother  had  been  and  what  she  was  now: 
and  the  illustrations  he  gave  of  Lily's  ignorance  of  ethical 
standards  made  Mary  Houghton  cringe.  "She's  ruining 
the  little  fellow,"  he  said;  "he's  not  mean  nor  a  coward — 

I'll  say  that  for  him!    But  he  lies  whenever  he  feels  like 
19 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

it,  and  honesty  only  means  not  getting  'pinched.'  She's 
awfully  ambitious  for  him;  but  her  idea  of  success  is  what 
she  calls  'Society.'  Oh,  it's  such  a  relief  to  speak  to  you, 
Mrs.  Houghton!  I  haven't  a  soul  I  can  talk  to." 

"  Maurice,  can't  you  get  him  ? "  Her  voice  was  shocked. 

He  almost  laughed.  "Wild  horses  wouldn't  drag  him 
from  Lily!" 

She  was  silent  before  the  complexity  of  the  situation — 
the  furtive  paternity,  with  its  bewildered  sense  of  respon- 
sibility, in  conflict  with  the  passion  of  the  dam! 

"I  have  to  be  so  infernally  secret,"  Maurice  said.  "If 
it  wasn't  for  that,  I  could  train  him  a  little,  because  he's 
fond  of  me,"  he  explained — and  for  a  moment  his  face 
relaxed  into  one  of  his  old  charming  smiles.  "He  really  is 
an  awfully  fine  little  beggar.  I  swear  I  believe  he's  musical ! 
And  he's  confoundedly  clever.  Why,  he  said — "  Mrs. 
Houghton  could  have  wept  with  the  pitif ulness  of  it !  For 
Maurice  went  on,  like  any  proud  young  father,  with  a 
story  of  how  his  little  boy  had  said  this  or  done  that. 
"But  he's  fresh,  sometimes,  and  he's  the  kind  that,  if  he 
got  fresh,  ought  to  be  licked.  She  can't  make  him  mind; 
but" — here  the  poor,  shamed  pride  shone  again  in  his 
blue  eyes — "he  minds  me!" 

Mary  Houghton  was  silent;  she  tried  to  consider  the 
stars,  but  her  dismay  at  a  child  endangered,  came  between 
her  and  the  eternal  tranquillities.  "The  boy  must  be 
saved,"  she  thought,  "at  any  cost!  It  isn't  a  question  of 
Maurice's  happiness;  it's  a  question  of  his  obligation. " 

1 '  This  thing  of  having  a  secret  hanging  round  your  neck 
is  hell!"  Maurice  told  her.  "Every  minute  I  think — 
'Suppose  Eleanor  should  find  out?" 

Mrs.  Houghton  put  her  hand  on  his  knee.  "The  only 
way  to  escape  from  the  fear  of  being  found  out,  Maurice, 
is  to  be  found  out.  Get  rid  of  the  millstone.  Tell  Eleanor." 

"You  don't  know  Eleanor,"  he  said,  dryly. 

"Yes,  I  do.  She  loves  you  so  much  that  she  would 
forgive  you.  And  with  forgiveness  would  come  helpful- 
ness with  the  little  boy.  The  child  is  the  important  one — 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  285 

not  you,  nor  Eleanor,  nor  the  woman.  Oh,  Maurice,  a 
child  is  the  most  precious  thing  in  the  world!  You  must 
save  him!" 

"Don't  you  suppose  I  want  to?  But,  good  God!  I'm 
helpless." 

"If  you  tell  Eleanor,  you  won't  be  'helpless.'" 

"You  don't  understand.  She's  jealous  of — of  every- 
body." 

"Telling  her  will  prove  to  her  she  needn't  be  jealous 
of — this  person.  And  the  chance  to  do  something  for  you 
would  mean  so  much  to  her.  She  will  forgive  you — 
Eleanor  can  always  do  a  big  thing !  Remember  the  moun- 
tain? Maurice!  Let  her  do  another  great  thing  for  you. 
Let  her  help  you  save  your  child,  by  making  it  possible 
for  you  to  be  open  and  aboveboard,  and  see  him  all  you 
want  to — all  you  ought  to.  Oh,  Maurice  dear,  it  would 
have  been  better,  of  course,  if  you  had  told  Eleanor  at 
first.  You  wouldn't  have  had  to  carry  this  awful  load  for 
all  these  years.  But  tell  her  now!  Give  her  the  chance  to 
be  generous.  Let  her  help  you  to  do  your  duty  to  the  little 
boy.  Maurice,  his  character,  and  his  happiness,  are  your 
job!  Just  as  much  your  job  as  if  he  had  been  Eleanor's 
child,  instead  of  the  child  of  this  woman.  Perhaps  more 
so,  for  that  reason.  Don't  you  see  that?  Tell  Eleanor,  so 
that  you  can  save  him!" 

The  appeal  was  like  a  bugle  note.  Maurice — discour- 
aged, thwarted,  hopeless — heard  it,  and  his  heart  quick- 
ened. This  inverted  idea  of  recompense — of  making  up 
to  Eleanor  for  having  secretly  robbed  her,  by  telling  her 
she  had  been  robbed! — stirred  some  hope  in  him.  He 
did  not  love  his  wife;  he  was  profoundly  tired  of  her;  but 
suppose,  now,  he  did  throw  himself  upon  her  generosity 
and  give  her  a  chance  to  prove  that  love  which  was  a 
daily  fatigue  to  him?  Mere  Truth  would,  as  Mrs.  Hough- 
ton  said,  go  far  toward  saving  Jacky.  He  was  silent  for  a 
long  time.  Then  Mary  Houghton  said : 

"I  ought  to  tell  you,  Maurice,  that  Henry — who  is  the 
very  best  man  in  the  world,  as  well  as  the  wisest ! — doesn't 


286  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

agree  with  me  about  this  matter  of  confession.  He  doesn't 
understand  women!  He  thinks  you  ought  not  to  tell 
Eleanor." 

"I  know.  He  said  so.  That  first  night,  when  I  told 
him  the  whole  hideous  business,  he  said  so.  And  I  thought 
he  was  right.  I'm  afraid  I  still  think  so." 

' '  He  was  wrong.  Maurice,  save  the  child !  Tell  Eleanor. " 

"That  is  what  Edith  said." 

"Edith!"   Mary  Houghton  was  stupefied. 

"Oh,  not  about  this.  I  only  mean  Edith  said  once, 
'Don't  have  a  secret  from  Eleanor.'" 

"She  was  right,"  Edith's  mother  said,  getting  her 
breath. 

Then  they  were  silent  again.  A  distant  measure  of 
ragtime  floated  up  from  the  lobby;  once,  as  a  heavy  team 
passed  down  in  the  street,  the  chandelier  swayed,  and 
little  lights  flickered  among  the  faintly  clicking  prisms, 
Mrs.  Houghton  looked  at  him — and  looked  away. 
Maurice  was  thirty-one;  his  face  was  patient  and  mel- 
ancholy; the  old  crinkling  laughter  rarely  made  gay 
wrinkles  about  his  eyes,  yet  wrinkles  were  there,  and 
his  lips  were  cynical.  Suddenly,  he  turned  and  struck 
his  hand  on  hers: 

"I'll  do  it,"  he  said.  .  .  . 

Late  that  night  Henry  Houghton,  listening  to  his  Mary's 
story  of  this  talk,  looked  almost  frightened.  "Mary,  it's 
an  awful  risk — Eleanor  will  never  stand  up  to  it!" 

"I  think  she  will." 

"My  dear,  when  it  comes  to  children,  you — with  your 
stars! — get  down  to  the  elemental  straighter  than  I  do; 
I  know  that !  And  I  admit  that  it  is  terrible  for  Maurice's 
child  to  be  scrapped,  as  he  will  be  if  he  is  brought  up  by 
this  impossible  person.  But  as  for  Eleanor's  helping 
Maurice  to  save  him  from  the  scrap  heap,  you  overlook 
the  fact  that  to  tell  a  jealous  woman  that  she  has  cause 
for  jealousy  is  about  as  safe  as  to  take  a  lighted  match 
into  a  powder  magazine.  There  '11  be  an  explosion." 

"Well,"  she  said,  "suppose  there  is?" 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  287 

"Good  heavens,  Mary!  Do  you  realize  what  that 
means  ?  She'll  leave  him ! ' ' 

*'I  don't  believe  she  will,"  his  wife  said,  "but  if  she  does, 
he  can  at  least  see  all  he  wants  of  the  boy.  He  seems  to 
be  an  unusually  bright  child." 

Her  husband  nodded.  "Yes;  Nature  isn't  shocked  at 
illegitimacy;  and  God  doesn't  penalize  it." 

"But  you  do,"  she  said,  quickly,  "when  you  won't 
admit  that  Jacky  is  the  crux  of  the  whole  thing !  It  isn't 
poor  Maurice  who  ought  to  be  considered,  nor  that  sad, 
tragic  old  Eleanor;  nor  the  dreadful  person  in  Medfield. 
But  just  that  little  child — whom  Maurice  has  brought  into 
the  world." 

"Do  you  mean,"  her  husband  said,  aghast,  "that  if 
Eleanor  saw  fit  to  divorce  him,  you  think  he  should  marry 
this  'Lily,'  so  that  he  could  get  the  child?" 

She  did  shrink  at  that.    "Well—"  she  hesitated. 

He  saw  his  advantage,  and  followed  it:  "He  couldn't 
get  complete  possession  in  any  other  way!  Unless  he 
were  legally  the  father,  the  woman  could,  at  any  minute, 
carry  off  this — what  did  you  say  his  name  was  ? — Jacky  ? — 
to  Kamchatka,  if  she  wanted  to !  Or  she  might  very  well 
marry  somebody  else;  that  kind  do.  Then  Maurice 
wouldn't  have  any  finger  in  the  pie!  No;  really  to  get 
control  of  the  child,  he'd  have  to  marry  her,  which,  as 
you  yourself  admit,  is  impossible." 

"I  don't  admit  it." 

"Mary!  You  must  be  reasonable;  you  know  it  would 
be  shocking!  So  why  not  keep  things  as  they  are?  Why 
run  the  risk  of  an  explosion,  by  confessing  to  Eleanor?" 

Mary  Houghton  pondered,  silently. 

"Kit,"  he  said,  "this  is  a  'condition  and  not  a  theory'; 
the  woman  was — was  common,  you  know.  Maurice 
doesn't  owe  her  anything;  he  has  paid  the  piper  ten  times 
over!  Any  further  payment,  like  ruining  his  career  by 
'making  an  honest  woman '  of  her, — granting  an  explosion 
and  then  Eleanor's  divorcing  him, — would  be  not  only 
wrong,  but  ridiculous;  which  is  worse!  Maurice  is  an 


288  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

able  fellow;  I  rather  expect  to  see  him  go  in  for  politics 
one  of  these  days.  Imagine  this  '  Lily '  at  the  head  of  his 
table !  Or  even  imagine  her  as  a  fireside  companion ! " 

"It  would  be  terrible,"  she  admitted — her  voice  trem- 
bled— "but  Jacky's  life  is  more  important  than  Maurice's 
dinner  table.  And  fireside  happiness  is  less  important 
than  the  meeting  of  an  obligation !  Henry,  Maurice  made 
a  bad  woman  Jacky's  mother;  he  owes  her  nothing.  But 
do  you  mean  to  say  that  you  don't  think  he  owes  the  child 
a  decent  father?" 

"My  darling,"  Henry  Houghton  said,  tenderly,  "you 
are  really  a  little  crazy.  You  are  like  your  stars,  you  so 
'steadfastly  pursue  your  shining,'  that  you  fail  to  see 
that,  in  this  dark  world  of  men,  there  has  to  be  compro- 
mise. If  this  impossible  situation  should  arise — which 
God  forbid! — if  the  explosion  should  come,  and  Eleanor 
should  leave  him,  of  course  Maurice  wouldn't  marry  the 
woman!  I  should  consider  him  a  candidate  for  an  insane 
asylum  if  he  thought  of  such  a  thing.  He  would  simply 
do  what  he  could  for  the  boy,  and  that  would  be  the  end 
of  it." 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "don't  you  see?  It  would  be  the  begin- 
ning of  it ! — The  beginning  of  an  evil  influence  in  the  world ; 
a  bad  little  boy,  growing  into  a  bad  man — and  his  own 
father  permitting  it!  But,"  she  ended,  with  a  sudden 
uplifted  look,  "the  'situation,'  as  you  call  it,  won't  arise; 
Eleanor  will  prevent  it!  Eleanor  will  save  Jacky." 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

WALKING  home  that  night,  with  Mrs.  Houghton's 
"tell  Eleanor"  ringing  in  his  ears,  Maurice  imag- 
ined a  "confession,"  and  he,  too,  used  Mr.  Houghton's 
words,  "'there  will  be  an  explosion!'  But  I'll  gamble 
on  it;  I'll  tell  her.  I  promised  Mrs.  Houghton  I  would." 
Then,  very  anxiously,  he  tried  to  decide  how  he  should  do 
it;  "I  must  choose  just  the  right  moment,"  he  thought. 

When,  three  months  later,  the  moment  came,  he  hardly 
recognized  it.  He  had  been  playing  squash  and  had  given 
his  knee  a  nasty  wrench ;  the  ensuing  synovitis  meant  an 
irritable  fortnight  of  sitting  at  home  near  the  telephone, 
with  his  leg  up,  fussing  about  office  work.  And  when  he 
was  not  fussing  he  would  look  at  Eleanor  and  say  to  him- 
self, "How  can  I  tell  her?"  Then  he  would  think  of  his 
boy  developing  into  a  little  joyous  liar — and  thief!  The 
five  cents  that  purchased  the  jew's-harp,  instead  of  going 
into  the  missionary  box,  was  intensely  annoying  to  him. 
"But  the  lying  is  the  worst.  I  can  stand  anything  but 
lying!"  the  poor  lying  father  thought.  It  was  then  that 
Eleanor  caught  his  eye,  a  half-scared,  appraising,  entreat- 
ing eye — and  stood  still,  looking  down  at  him. 

"Maurice,  you  want  something?   What  is  it?" 

"Oh,  Nelly!"  he  said;  "I  want— "  And  the  thing  tum- 
bled from  his  lips  in  six  words :  "  I  want  you  to  forgive  me. " 

Eleanor  put  her  hand  to  her  throat;  then  she  said, 
"I  know,  Maurice." 

Silence  tingled  between  them.  Maurice  said,  "You 
know?" 

She  nodded.  He  was  too  stunned  to  ask  how  she  knew; 
he  only  said,  "I've  been  a  hound." 

Instantly,  as  though  some  locked  and  bolted  door  had 


290  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

been  forced,  her  heart  was  open  to  him.  "Maurice!  I 
can  bear  it — if  only  you  don't  lie  to  me!" 

"I  have  lied,"  he  said;  "but  I  can't  go  on  lying  any 
more!  It's  been  hell.  Of  course  you'll  never  forgive  me." 

Instantly  she  was  on  her  knees  beside  him,  and  her  lips 
trembled  against  his  cheek;  but  she  was  silent.  She  was 
agonizing,  not  for  herself,  but  for  him;  he  had  suffered. 
And  when  that  thought  came,  Love  rose  like  a  wave  and 
swept  jealousy  away!  It  was  impossible  for  her  to  speak. 
Over  in  his  basket  old  Bingo  growled. 

"It  was  years  ago,"  he  said,  very  low;  " I  haven't— had 
anything  to  do  with  her  since;  but — " 

She  said,  gasping,  "Do  you  .  .  .  love  her  still?" 

"Good  God!  no;  I  never  loved  her." 

"Then,"  she  said,  "I  don't  mind." 

His  arms  went  about  her,  his  head  dropped  on  her 
shoulder.  The  little  dog,  unnoticed,  barked  angrily.  For 
a  few  minutes  neither  of  them  could  speak.  To  him,  the 
unexpectedness  of  forgiveness  was  an  absolute  shock. 
Eleanor,  her  cheek  against  his  hair,  wept.  Happy  tears! 
Then  she  whispered: 

"There  is  ...  a  child?" 

He  nodded  speechlessly. 

"Maurice,  I  will  love  it — " 

He  was  too  overcome  to  speak.  Here  she  was,  this  irri- 
tating, foolish,  faithful  woman,  coming,  with  outstretched, 
forgiving  arms — to  rescue  him  from  his  long  deceit ! 

"I  have  known  it,"  she  said,  "for  nearly  two  years." 

"And  you  never  spoke  of  it!" 

"I  couldn't." 

"I  want  to  tell  you  everything,  Eleanor.  It  was — that 
Dale  woman." 

She  pressed  very  close  to  him:   "I  know." 

He  wondered  swiftly  how  she  knew,  but  he  did  not  stop 
to  ask;  his  words  rushed  out;  it  was  as  if  the  jab  of  a 
lancet  had  opened  a  hidden  wound:  "I  never  cared  a 
copper  for  her.  Never !  But — it  happened.  I  was  angry 
about  something,  and, —  Oh,  I'm  not  excusing  myself. 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  291 

There  isn't  any  excuse!  But  I  met  her,  and  somehow — 
Oh,  Eleanor!" 

"Maurice,  .  .  .  what  does  she  call  you?" 

' '  Call  me  ?  What  do  you  mean  ? ' ' 

"What  name?" 

"Why,  'Mr.  Curtis,'  of  course." 

"Not 'Maurice'?   Oh— I'm  so  glad!   Goon." 

"Well,  I  never  saw  her  again  until  she  wrote  to  me 
about  .  .  .  this  child.  Eleanor!  I  tried  to  tell  you.  Do 
you  remember?  One  night  in  the  boarding  house — the 
night  of  the  eclipse?  I  thought  you'd  never  forgive  me, 
but  I  tried  to  tell  you.  .  .  .  Oh,  Star,  you  are  wonderful ! " 

It  was  an  amazing  moment;  he  said  to  himself:  "Mrs. 
Houghton  was  right.  Edith  was  right.  How  I  have  mis- 
judged her!"  He  went  on,  Eleanor  still  kneeling  beside 
him,  sometimes  holding  his  hand  to  her  lips,  sometimes 
pressing  her  wet  cheek  against  his ;  once  her  graying  hair 
fell  softly  across  his  eyes.  .  .  .  "Then,"  he  said,  "then 
.  .  .  the  baby  was  born." 

"Oh,  we  had  no  children!" 

His  arms  comforted  her.  "  I  didn't  care.  I  have  never 
cared.  I  hated  the  idea  of  children,  because  of  ...  this 
child." 

"  Is  his  name  Jacky  ? " 

"That's  what  she  called  him.  I  never  really  noticed 
him,  until  winter  before  last;  then  I  kind  of — "  He 
paused,  then  rushed  on;  it  was  to  be  Truth  henceforward 
between  them!  " I  sort  of — got  fond  of  him."  He  waited, 
holding  his  breath;  but  there  was  no  "explosion"!  She 
just  pressed  his  hand  against  her  breast. 

"Yes,  Maurice?" 

"He  was  sick  and  she  sent  for  me — " 

"I  know.  That's  how  I  knew.  The  telegram  came,  and 
I —  Oh,"  she  interrupted  herself,  "I  wasn't  prying!" 
She  was  like  a  dog,  shrinking  before  an  expected  blow. 

The  fright  in  her  face  went  to  his  heart;  what  a  brute 
he  must  have  been  to  have  made  her  so  afraid  of  him ! 

"It  was  all  right  to  open  it!    I'm  glad  you  opened  it. 


292  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

Well,  he  was  pretty  sick,  and  I  had  to  get  him  into  the 
hospital;  and  after  that  I  began  to  get  sort  of — interested 
in  him.  But  now  I'm  worried  to  death,  because — '  Then 
he  told  why  he  was  worried;  he  told  her  almost  with  pas- 
sion! .  .  .  '"'For  he's  an  awfully  fine  little  chap!  But  she's 
ruining  him."  It  was  amazing  how  he  was  able  to  pour 
himself  out  to  her !  His  anxiety  about  Jacky,  his  irritation 
at  Lily — yet  his  appreciation  of  Lily;  he  wouldn't  go 
back  on  Lily!  "She  wasn't  bad — ever.  Just  unmoral. " 

"I  understand." 

"Oh,  Eleanor,  to  be  able  to  talk  to  you,  and  tell  you!" 
So  he  went  on  telling  her:  he  told  her  of  his  faint,  shy 
pride  in  his  little  son;  told  her  a  funny  speech,  and  she 
laughed.  Told  her  Jacky  had  seen  a  rainbow  in  the  gutter 
and  said  it  was  ' '  handsome. "  "  He  really  notices  Beauty ! ' ' 
Told  her  of  Lily's  indignation  at  the  Sunday-school 
teacher,  and  his  own  effort  to  make  Jacky  tell  the  truth. 
"I  have  a  tremendous  influence  over  him.  He'll  do  any- 
thing for  me;  only,  I  see  him  so  seldom  that  I  can't  coun- 
teract poor  old  Lily's  influence.  She  hasn't  any  idea  of  our 
way  of  looking  at  things." 

"You  must  counteract  her!  You  must  see  him  all  the 
time." 

"Eleanor,"  he  said,  "I  have  never  known  you!" 

He  tried  to  lift  her  and  hold  her  in  his  arms,  but  she 
-was  terrified  about  his  knee. 

"No!  Don't  move!  You'll  hurt  your  knee.  Maurice, 
can't  I  see  him?" 

"What!  Do  you  really  want  to?"  he  said,  amazed. 
"Eleanor,  you  are  wonderful!" 

That  whole  evening  was  entire  bliss — as  much  to  Mau- 
rice as  to  Eleanor;  to  him,  it  was  escape  from  the  bog  of 
secrecy  in  which,  soiled  with  self -disgust,  he  had  walked 
for  nearly  nine  years ;  and  with  the  clean  sense  of  touching 
the  bedrock  of  Truth  was  an  upspringing  hope  for  his 
little  boy,  who  "noticed  Beauty"!  He  would  be  able  to 
see  Jacky,  and  train  him,  and  gain  his  affection,  and  make 
a  man  of  him.  He  had  a  sudden  vision  of  companionship. 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  293' 

"He'll  be  in  business  with  me."  But  that  made  him  smile 
at  himself.    "Well,  we'll  go  to  ball  games,  anyway!" 

To  Eleanor,  the  evening  was  a  mountain  peak;  from 
the  sun-smitten  heights  of  a  forgiveness  that  knew  itself 
to  be  Love,  and  forgot  that  it  forgave,  she  looked  out,  and 
saw — not  that  grave  where  Truth  and  Pride  were  buried, 
but  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth;  Maurice's  complete 
devotion.  And  his  child, — whom  she  could  love. 


CHAPTER  XXVIH 

rPHOSE  next  weeks  were  full  of  plans  and  hopes  on 
1  Eleanor's  part,  and  gratitude  on  Maurice's  part.  But 
she  would  not  let  him  say  that  he  was  grateful,  or  that  she 
was  generous;  he  had  told  her,  of  course,  how  Mrs. 
Houghton  had  guessed  long  ago  what  had  happened,  and 
how  she  had  urged  him  to  trust  his  wife's  nobility — but 
Eleanor  would  not  let  him  call  her  "noble";  "Don't  say 
it!  And  don't  be  'grateful.'  I  just  love  you,"  she  said; 
"and  if  you  only  knew  what  it  means  to  me  to  be  able 
to  do  anything  for  you!  It's  so  long  since  you've  needed 
me,  Maurice." 

The  pathos  of  her  sense  of  uselessness  made  his  eyes 
sting.  "I  couldn't  get  along  without  you,"  he  told  her. 

Once,  on  a  rainy  April  Sunday  morning,  when  they  were 
talking  about  Jacky  (Maurice  had  gone  to  see  him  the 
day  before,  and  was  gnashing  his  teeth  over  some  cheerful 
obliquity  on  the  part  of  Lily) — Maurice  said,  emphati- 
cally: "Gosh!  Nelly,  I  don't  know  what  I'd  do  without 
you!" 

She,  sitting  on  a  stool  at  his  side  (and  looking,  poor 
woman!  old  enough  to  be  his  mother),  was  radiant. 

"And  you  don't  enjoy  talking  to  Lily?"  she  said — just 
for  the  happiness  of  hearing,  again,  his  horrified  protest, 
"I  should  say  not!  There's  nothing  she  can  talk  about." 

"She  doesn't  know  about  books  and  things?  She  hasn't 
—brains?" 

"Brains?  She  probably  never  read  anything  in  her  life! 
She  has  lots  of  sense,  but  no  intellect.  She  hasn't  an  idea 
beyond  food  and  flowers — and  Jacky." 

"  I  wish  I  had  her  idea  about  food,"  Eleanor  said,  simply. 

It  was  her  fairness  toward  Lily  that  amazed  him;   it 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  295 

made  him  reproach  himself  for  his  stupidity  in  not  having 
confessed  to  her  long  ago!  "Why  was  I  such  a  fool, 
Eleanor,  as  not  to  know  that  you  were  a  big  woman? 
Mrs.  Houghton  knew  it.  Why,  even  Edith  knew  it!  She 
told  me  you'd  forgive  anything." 

"What!"  She  rose  abruptly  and  stood  looking  at  him 
with  suddenly  angry  eyes.  ' '  Does  Edith  know  ? ' '  she  said. 

"No!  Of  course  she  doesn't  know — this!  But  one  day 
she  and  I  were  taking  a  walk,  and  I  was  thinking  what  a 
devilish  mess  I  was  in.  ...  And  I  suppose  Edith  saw  I 
was  down  by  the  head,  and  she  got  to  talking  about  you — " 

"You  let  her  talk  about  me!" 

"She  was  saying  how  perfectly  fine  you  had  been  about 
the  mountain — ' ' 

"I  don't  need  Edith  Houghton 's  approval  of  my  con- 
duct, Maurice."  She  was  trembling,  and  her  face  was 
quite  pale.  He  rushed  in  deeper  than  ever: 

"I  was  only  saying  I  felt  so — badly,  because  I  had 
failed  to  make  you  happy.  Of  course  I  didn't  say  how! 
And  she  said,  'Don't  have  any  secrets  from  Eleanor!'" 

"So  it  was  Edith  who  made  you — " 

For  a  moment  Maurice  was  too  dismayed  to  speak;  be- 
sides, he  didn't  know  what  to  say.  What  he  did  say  was 
that  she  misunderstood  him.  "Good  heavens!  Eleanor, 
you  didn't  think  I'd  tell  Edith  a  thing  like  that?  Or  that 
I'd  tell  any  woman,  when  I  didn't  tell  you?  But  Edith 
knew  you  better  than  I  did;  she  said  no  matter  what  I'd 
done  (I  just  happened  to  say  I  was  a  skunk),  you  loved 
me  enough  to  forgive  me.  And  you  have  forgiven  me." 

"Yes,"  she  said,  in  a  whisper;  "I've  forgiven  you." 

She  went  over  to  the  window,  and  stood  perfectly  silent. 
It  was  raining  steadily;  the  river,  a  block  away,  was  hid- 
den in  the  yellow  fog;  down  in  the  yard,  the  tables  and 
chairs  under  the  poplar  dripped  and  dripped.  As  for 
Maurice,  it  was  as  if  some  dark  finger  had  stretched  out 
and  touched  a  bubble.  .  .  .  She  was  the  same  Eleanor. 

But  he  did  not  dwell  upon  this  revealing  moment;  it 
was  enough  that  at  last  he  could  stop  lying,  and  that 


296  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

Eleanor  would  help  him  about  Jacky !  He  called  her  back 
from  the  window  and  made  her  sit  down  again  beside  him, 
pretending  not  to  see  how  her  hands  were  trembling.  Then 
he  went  on  talking  about  Jacky. 

"His  latest  achievement  is  an  infernal  mouth  har- 
monicon." 

She  said,  listlessly,  "I  wish  I  could  give  him  music 
lessons." 

"He's  crazy  about  music;  trails  hand  organs  all  over 
Medfield!"  Maurice  said,  with  a  great  effort  to  be  cheer- 
fully casual;  "but,  Heaven  knows,  I'd  be  glad  if  you  could 
give  him  lessons  in  anything !  Manners,  for  instance.  He 
hasn't  any.  Or  grammar;  I  told  him  not  to  say  'ain't,' 
and,  if  you  please!  he  told  his  mother  she  mustn't  say  it! 
Lily  got  on  her  ear." 

She  smiled  faintly.   "I  wish  I  could  see  him,"  she  said. 

She  had  urged  this  more  than  once,  but  it  had  not 
seemed  practicable.  "I  can't  bring  him  here,"  Maurice 
explained;  "he'd  blurt  out  to  Lily  where  he'd  been,  and 
she'd  get  uneasy.  Even  as  it  is,  I  live  in  dread  that  she'll 
pack  up  and  clear  out  with  him." 

"She  sha'n't  take  him  away!"  Eleanor  said;  she  was 
eager  again; — after  all,  Edith,  for  all  her  impertinence  in 
advising  Maurice  how  to  treat  his  wife ! — Edith  could  not 
break  in  upon  an  intimacy  like  this! 

Her  incessant  talk  about  Jacky  (which  might  have 
bored  Maurice  just  a  little,  if  it  had  not  touched  him)  gave 
her,  in  some  subtle,  spiritual  way,  a  sense  of  approaching 
motherhood:  she  made  preparations!  She  planned  little 
gifts  for  him; — Maurice  had  told  her  of  Jacky 's  lively 
interest  in  benefits  to  come;  once,  she  thought,  "I  sup- 
pose he's  too  old  to  have  one  of  those  funny  papers  in  his 
room?  I  saw  such  a  pretty  one  to-day,  little  rabbits  in 
trousers!" — For  by  this  time  she  had  determined  that, 
somehow,  she  would  get  possession  of  him!  In  these 
maternal  moments  she  feared  no  rivalry  from  Edith 
Houghton.  Jacky  would  save  her  from  Edith! 

"Oh,  Maurice!  I  must  see  him,"  she  said  once. 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  297 

"I'll  fix  it  so  you  can,"  he  told  her.  But  it  was  two 
months  before  he  was  able  to  fix  it;  then  "Forepaws" 
came  to  town,  and  the  way  was  clear!  He  would  take 
Jacky,  and  Eleanor  should  go  and  have  a  seat  near  by, 
and  come  up  and  speak  to  the  youngster,  as  any  admiring 
stranger  might,  and,  indeed,  often  did,  for  Jacky  was  a 
striking  child — his  eyes  blue  and  keen,  his  skin  very  clear, 
and  his  cheeks  glowing  with  health.  "  If  he  goes  home  and 
tells  Lily  a  lady  spoke  to  him,"  Maurice  said,  "she  won't 
think  anything  of  it." 

"May  I  give  him  some  candy?" 

"No;  he  has  too  much  of  it  as  it  is;  get  one  of  those 
tin  horns  for  him.  He'll  raise  Cain  for  Lily,  I  suppose; 
but  we  won't  have  to  listen  to  him!"  (That  "we"  so  fed 
Eleanor's  starved  soul,  that  she  thought  of  Edith  Hough- 
ton  with  a  sort  of  gay  contempt :  "  /' m  not  afraid  of  her ! ' ') 

The  plan  for  seeing  Jacky  went  through  easily  enough. 
"I'll  take  that  boy  of  yours  to  the  circus,"  Maurice  told 
Lily,  carelessly,  one  day. 

"Why,  that's  awful  kind  in  you,  Mr.  Curtis;  but  ain't 
you  afraid  somebody  '11  see  you  luggin'  a  child  around  ? "  . 

"Lots  of  men  take  kids  to  the  circus — just  as  an  excuse 
to  go  themselves." 

So  Maurice  and  the  eight-year-old  Jacky,  in  a  new 
sailor  suit,  and  a  face  so  clean  that  it  shone,  walked  in 
among  the  gilded  cages,  felt  the  sawdust  under  their  feet, 
smelled  the  wild  animals,  heard  the  yelps  of  the  jackals, 
the  booming  roar  of  lions,  and  the  screeching  chatter  of 
the  monkeys.  And  as  Jacky  dragged  his  father  from  cage 
to  cage,  a  yard  or  two  behind  them  came  Eleanor.  .  .  . 
Now  and  then,  over  Jacky's  head,  she  caught  Maurice's 
eye;  and  they  both  smiled. 

When  a  speechless  Jacky  was  taken  into  the  central 
tent  to  sit  on  a  narrow  bench,  and  drink  pink  lemonade 
and  eat  peanuts,  Eleanor  was  quite  near  him.  He  was 
unconscious  of  her  presence — unconscious  of  everything! 
except  the  blare  of  the  band,  the  elephants,  the  performing 
dogs — especially  the  poor,  strained  performing  dogs! 


298  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

He  never  spoke  once;  his  eyes  were  fixed  on  the 
rings;  he  didn't  see  his  father  watching  him,  amused  and 
proud;  still  less  did  he  see  the  lady  who  had  been  at  his 
heels  in  the  animal  tent,  and  who  now  kept  her  mournful 
dark  eyes  on  his  face.  When  the  last  horse  gave  the  last 
kick  and  trotted  out  through  the  exit,  with  its  mysterious 
canvas  walls,  Jacky  was  in  a  daze  of  bliss.  He  sat,  open- 
mouthed,  staring  at  the  empty,  trampled  sawdust. 

"Come  along,  young  man!"  Maurice  said;  "do  you 
want  to  stay  here  all  night?" 

"I'm  going  to  be  a  circus  rider,"  said  Jacky,  solemnly. 

It  was  then  that  the  "lady"  spoke  to  him — her  voice 
broke  twice:  "Well,  little  boy,  did  you  like  the  circus?" 
the  lady  said.  She  was  so  pale  that  Maurice  put  his  hand 
on  her  arm. 

"Better  sit  down,  Nelly,"  he  said,  kindly,  under  his 
breath. 

She  shook  her  head.  "No.  .  .  .  Jacky,  don't  you  want 
to  tell  me  your  name?" 

"But  you  know  my  name,"  said  Jacky,  with  a  bored 
look 

Maurice  gave  her  a  warning  glance,  and  she  tried  to 
cover  her  blunder:  "I  heard  your  father — I  mean  this 
gentleman — call  you  'Jacky,' "  she  explained — panting,  for 
Maurice's  quick  frown  frightened  her.  "Here's  a  present 
for  you,"  she  said. 

" Present!"  said  Jacky — and  made  a  joyous  grab  at  the 
horn,  which  he  immediately  put  to  his  lips;  but  before  it 
could  emit  its  ear-piercing  screech,  Maurice  struck  it  down. 

"Where  are  your  manners?  Say  'Thank  you'  to  the 
lady." 

Jacky  sighed,  but  murmured,  "'Ank  you." 

Eleanor,  her  chin  trembling,  said:  "May  I  kiss  him?" 

'"Course,"  Maurice  said,  huskily. 

She  bent  down  and  kissed  him  with  trembling  lips — 
"Ach! — you  make  me  all  wet,"  Jacky  said,  frowning  at 
her  tears  on  his  rosy  cheek. 

Later,  as  Maurice  pulled  his  reluctant  son  out  on  to  the 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  299 

pavement,  he  was  so  moved  that  he  almost  forgot  that 
she  was  still  the  old  Eleanor;  he  didn't  even  listen  to  his 
little  boy's  passionate  assertion  that  he  would  be  a  flying- 
trapeze  man.  As  he  walked  along  beside  his  wife  to  put 
her  on  the  car  he  spoke  with  great  tenderness: 

"I'll  leave  him  at  Lily's,  and  then  I'll  come  right  home, 
dear,  and  we'll  talk  things  over." 

When  he  and  his  son  got  back  to  Maple  Street,  Jacky 
was  blowing  that  infernal  horn  so  that  the  whole  neighbor- 
hood was  aware  of  his  ecstasy.  Lily,  waiting  for  them  at 
the  gate,  put  her  hands  over  her  ears. 

"My  soul  and  body!  For  the  land's  sake,  stop!  Who 
give  you  that  horrid  thing?" 

"An  old  lady,"  said  Jacky — and  blew  a  shattering 
screech  on  Eleanor's  horn. 
20 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

FROM  the  day  of  the  circus,  Jacky  became,  to  Eleanor, 
not  a  symbol  of  Maurice's  unfaithfulness,  but  a  hope 
for  the  future.  The  thought  of  his  mother  was  only  the 
scar  of  a  wound,  which  Maurice,  in  some  single  slashing 
moment,  had  made  in  her  heart.  She  was  crippled  by  it, 
of  course.  But  the  wound  had  healed  so  she  could  forget 
the  scar — because  Maurice  had  never  loved  Lily,  never 
found  her  "interesting,"  never  wanted  to  wander  about 
with  her,  in  a  dark  garden,  and  talk 

Of  shoes — and  ships — and  sealing  wax — 
And  cabbages — and  kings.  .  .  . 

To  be  sure  the  scar  ached  dully  once  in  a  while;  but 
Eleanor  knew  that  if  she  could  get  possession  of  Jacky 
she  would  be  protected  against  other  wounds — wounds 
which  would  never  heal !  She  said  to  herself  that  Maurice 
would  never  think  of  Edith  Houghton  if  he  had  Jacky! 
But  how  should  she  get  Jacky? 

For  months  she  revolved  countless  schemes  to  persuade 
Lily  to  resign  him;  schemes  so  futile  that  Maurice,  listen- 
ing to  them  every  night  when  he  got  home  from  the  office, 
was  touched,  of  course;  but  by  and  by  he  was  also  a  little 
uneasy.  He  had  told  her  where  Lily  lived,  then  regretted 
it,  for  once  she  walked  up  and  down  before  the  house  on 
Maple  Street  for  an  hour,  hoping  to  see  "the  woman,"  but 
failing,  because  Lily  and  Jacky  happened  to  be  in  town 
that  afternoon. 

"I  have  a  great  mind  to  steal  him  for  you!"  she  said, 
telling  Maurice  of  her  fruitless  effort. 

He  protested,  too  disturbed  at  her  mere  presence  on 
Lily's  street  to  notice  her  attempt  at  a  joke.  "If  Lily 
should  imagine  that  we  were  interested  in  Jacky,  she'd 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  301 

run!"  he  explained;  "it's  dangerous,  Nelly,  really.    You] 
mustn't  go  near  her!" 

She  promised  she  wouldn't;  but  every  day  of  that 
Mercer  winter  of  low-hanging  smoke  and  damp  chilliness, 
she  longed  to  get  possession  of  the  child — first  to  make 
Maurice  happy;  then  with  the  craving,  driving,  elemental 
desire  for  maternity;  and  then  for  self -protection, — 
Jacky  would  vanquish  Edith! 

So  she  brooded :  a  child! 

"If  I  could  only  get  him,  it  wouldn't  be  'just  usT'j 
.  .  .  "A  boy's  clothes  are  not  as  pretty  as  a  girl's,  but  a 
little  rough  suit  would  be  awfully  attractive.  ...  I'd 
give  him  music  lessons.  .  .  .  We  could  go  out  to  our 
field  in  June.  And  he  would  take  off  his  shoes  and  stockings 
and  wade!"  How  foolish  Edith's  grown-up  childishness  of 
wading  looked,  compared  to  the  scene  which  she  visualized 
— a  little,  handsome  boy,  standing  in  the  shallow  rippling 
water,  bareheaded,  probably;  the  sunshine  sifting  down 
through  the  locust  blossoms  and  touching  that  thatch  of 
yellow  hair,  and  glinting  into  those  blue  eyes.  "He  would 
call  me  'Mamma'!"  Then  she  hummed  to  herself,  '"O 
Spring ! '  Oh,  I  must  have  him ! ' '  Her  hope  became  such 
an  obsession  that  its  irrationality  did  not  strike  her.  It 
was  so  in  her  mind  that  she  even  spoke  of  it  once  to  Mrs.  ] 
Houghton.  "I  know  you  know?"  she  said;  "Maurice 
told  me  he  told  you." 

Mary  Houghton  said,  hesitatingly,  "I  think  I  know, 
what  you  mean." 

This  was  in  March.  Mrs.  Houghton  and  Edith  were  in ' 
town  for  a  few  days'  shopping,  and  of  course  they  meant  to 
see  Eleanor.  "I'll  go  to  the  dressmaker's,"  Edith  had  told 
her  mother,  "and  then  I'll  corral  Maurice,  and  we'll  drop 
in  on  Mrs.  Newbolt,  and  then  I'll  meet  you  at  Eleanor's. 
I  don't  hanker  for  a  long  call  on  Eleanor."  Edith's  gayly 
candid  face  hardened. 

So  it  was  that  Mrs.  Houghton  had  arrived  ahead  of  her 
girl,  and  the  two  older  women  were  alone  before  a  little 
smoldering  fire  in  the  library.  Eleanor  had  left  her  tea 
tray  to  go  across  the  room  and  give  little  helpless  Bingo  a 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

lump  of  sugar. ' "He  only  eats  what  I  give  him,"  she  said; 
"dear  old  Bingo!  I  think  he  actually  suiters,  he's  so 
jealous."  Then,  pouring  Mrs.  Houghton's  tea,  she  sud- 
denly spoke:  "I  know  you — know?"  When  Mary  Hough- 
ton  said,  gravely,  yes,  she  "knew"  Eleanor  said,  "Oh, 
Mrs.  Houghton,  Maurice  and  I  are  nearer  to  each  other 
than  we  ever  were  before!" 

"That's  as  it  should  be.  And  as  I  knew  it  would  be, 
too.  You've  done  a  noble  thing,  Eleanor." 

"No!  No!  Don't  say  that!  It  was  nothing.  Because  I — 
I  love  him  so.  And  he  never  cared  for  that  woman.  She 
has  no  brains,  he  says.  But  what  I  want  is  to  get  the  boy 
for  him.  Oh,  he  must  have  the  boy!"  Then  she  told  Mrs. 
Houghton  how  Maurice  went  to  see  the  child.  "He  goes 
once  a  week,  though  he  says  she's  jealous  if  he  makes 
too  many  suggestions;  so  he  has  to  be  very  careful  or 
she  would  get  angry.  But  he  has  managed  it  so  I  have 
seen  him;  last  summer  he  took  him  to  the  circus,  and  I 
sat  near  them.  And  twice  he's  had  him  in  the  park  and  I 
spoke  to  him.  And  on  Christmas  he  took  him  to  the 
movies;  I  sat  beside  him.  And  I  buttoned  his  coat  when 
he  went  out!"  Her  eyes  were  rapt. 

Mary  Houghton,  listening,  said  to  herself,  "Now  what 
will  Henry  Houghton  say  about  the  'explosion'?  I  shall 
rub  it  into  him  when  I  get  home!"  .  .  .  "Eleanor,  you  are 
magnificent!"  she  said. 

"But  how  could  I  do  anything  else — if  I  loved  Mau- 
rice?" Eleanor  said.  "Oh,  I  do  want  him  to  have  Jacky! 
We  must  make  a  man  of  him.  It  would  be  wicked  to  let 
Lily  ruin  him !  And  I  want  to  give  him  music  lessons.  He 
has  Maurice's  blue  eyes." 

It  was  infinitely  pathetic,  this  woman  with  gray  hair, 
telling  of  her  young  husband's  joy  in  his  little  son — who 
was  not  hers.  And  Eleanor's  sense  of  the  paramount  im- 
portance of  the  child  gave  Mrs.  Houghton  a  new  and  real 
respect  for  her.  Aloud,  she  agreed  heartily  with  the  state- 
ment that  Jacky  must  be  saved  from  Lily. 

"She  isn't  bad,"  Eleanor  explained;  "but  she's  just  like 
an  animal,  Maurice  says.  Devoted  to  Jacky,  but  no  more 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  303 

idea  of  right  and  wrong  than — than  Bingo!"  She  was  so 
happy  that  she  laughed,  and  looked  almost  young — but 
at  that  moment  the  street  door  opened,  closed,  and  in  the 
hall  some  one  else  laughed.  Instantly  Eleanor  looked 
old.  "It's  Edith,"  she  said,  coldly. 

It  was — with  Maurice  in  tow.  "I  haled  him  forth  from 
his  office,"  Edith  said;  "and  we  went  to  see  your  aunt, 
Eleanor.  She's  a  lamb!" 

"Tea?"  Eleanor  said,  briefly. 

"Yes,  indeed!"  Edith  said.  She  looked  very  pretty — 
cheeks  glowing  and  brown  hair  flying  about  the  rounded 
brim  of  a  brown  fur  toque. 

Maurice,  keeping  an  eye  on  her,  was  gently  kind  to  his 
wife.  "Head  better,  Nelly?"  Then,  having  secured  his 
tea,  he  drew  Edith  over  to  the  window  and  they  went  on 
with  some  discussion  which  had  paused  as  they  entered 
the  house. 

Eleanor,  watching  them,  and  making  another  cup  of  tea 
for  Mrs.  Houghton,  spilled  the  boiling  water  on  the  tray 
and  on  her  own  hand. 

"My  dear!"  said  Mrs.  Houghton,  "you  have  scalded 
yourself!" 

And,  indeed,  Eleanor  whitened  with  the  pain  of  her 
smarting,  puffing  fingers.  But  she  said,  her  eyes  fixed  on 
Edith,  "What  are  they  talking  about?"  Mrs.  Houghton 's 
look  of  surprise  made  her  add:  "Edith  seems  so  interested. 
I  just  wondered.  ..."  She  had  caught  a  phrase  or  two: 

"I  can  take  the  spring  course, — it's  three  months.  I 
think  our  University  Domestic  Science  Department  is  just 
every  bit  as  good  as  any  of  the  Eastern  ones." 

"Where  did  you  two  meet  each  other?"  Eleanor  called, 
sharply. 

"Why,  I  told  you,"  Edith  said,  coming  over  to  the  tea 
table;  " I  dragged  him  from  his  desk !" 

"  Come,  Edith,  we  must  go,"  Mrs.  Houghton  said,  rising. 

"Why  don't  you  stay  to  dinner?"  Maurice  urged — but 
Eleanor  was  silent.  "If  you  are  in  town  next  week, 
Skeezics,  you've  got  to  put  up  here.  Understand?  Tell 
her  so,  Eleanor!" 


3o4  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

Eleanor  said  nothing.  Mrs.  Houghton  said  she  was 
afraid  it  wouldn't  be  convenient. 

Eleanor  said  nothing. 

"Of  course  you  will  come  here!"  Maurice  said;  he  was 
sharply  angry  at  his  wife. 

In  the  momentary  and  embarrassing  pause,  the  color 
flew  into  Edith's  face,  but  she  was  elaborately  indifferent. 
"Good-by,  Eleanor;  good-by,  Maurice!" 

"I'm  going  to  escort  you  to  the  hotel,"  Maurice  said; 
and,  over  his  shoulder  to  Eleanor:  "I've  got  to  rush  off 
to  St.  Louis  to-night,  Eleanor.  That  Greenleaf  business. 
Has  Mrs.  O'Brien  brought  my  things  home?" 

"I'll  see,"  she  said,  mechanically.  .  .  . 

Nobody  had  much  to  say  on  that  walk  to  the  hotel; 
but  when  Maurice  had  left  them,  and  the  two  ladies 
were  in  their  room,  Edith  faced  her  mother: 

"What  is  the  matter?" 

"You  mean  with  Eleanor?  She  has  a  headache,  I  sup- 
pose." 

"Mother,  don't  squirm!  You  know  just  as  well  as  I 
do  that  she  doesn't  want  me  to  stay  with  them.  Why 
not?"  She  did  not  wait  for  an  answer,  which,  indeed,  her 
mother  could  not  immediately  find.  "Well,  Heaven  knows 
I'm  not  pining  to  be  with  her!  I  shall  run  in  to-morrow 
morning,  and  tell  her  that  Mrs.  Newbolt  asked  me  to  stay 
with  her.  .  .  .  Mother,  how  could  Maurice  have  fallen  in 
love  with  Eleanor  ?"  Her  voice  trembled ;  she  went  over 
to  the  window  and  stood  looking  down  into  the  street;  her 
hands  were  clenched  behind  her,  and  her  soft  young  chin 
was  rigid.  "He  was  just  a  boy,"  she  said;  her  eyes  were 
blurring  so  that  the  street  was  a  gray  fog;  "how  could 
Eleanor?"  It  seemed  as  if  her  own  ardent,  innocent  body 
felt  the  recoil  of  Maurice's  youth  from  Eleanor's  age!  She 
thought  of  that  dark  place  in  his  past,  which  she  had 
accepted  with  pain,  but  always  with  defending  excuses; 
she  excused  him  again,  now,  in  her  thoughts:  "Eleanor 
was  impossible!  That's  why  somebody  else  .  .  .  caught 
him.  And  it  was  long  ag[o.  And  Eleanor's  old  enough  to 
be  his  mother.  He  never  could  have  loved  her!"  Sud-> 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  305 

denly  she  had  a  fleeting,  but  real,  pity  for  Eleanor:  "Poor 
thing!"  Aloud  she  said,  huskily,  over  her  shoulder,  "If 
she  had  really  loved  him,  she  wouldn't  have  done  such  a 
terrible  thing  as  marry  him." 

Mrs.  Houghton,  reading  the  evening  paper,  said,  briefly, 
"She  loves  him  now,  my  dear." 

"Oh!"  Edith  said,  passionately,  "sometimes  I  am  sorry 
for  Eleanor — and  then  the  next  minute  I  perfectly  hate 
her!" 

"She  was  only  forty  when  she  married  him,"  Mary 
Houghton  said;  " that  isn't  old  at  all !  And  I  have  always 
been  sorry  for  her."  She  looked  up  over  her  spectacles  at 
the  tense  young  figure  by  the  window,  outlined  against 
the  yellow  sunset;  saw  those  clenched  hands,  heard  the 
impetuous  voice  break  on  a  word, — and  forgot  Eleanor  in 
a  more  intimate  anxiety:  "Of  course,"  she  said,  "such  a 
difference  in  age  as  there  is  between  Maurice  and  Eleanor 
is  a  pity.  But  Maurice  is  devoted  to  her,  and  with  reason. 
She  has  been  generous  when  he  has  been  unkind.  I  hap- 
pen to  know  that." 

"Maurice  couldn't  be  unkind!" 

Her  mother  ignored  this.  "And  remember  another 
thing,  Edith :  It  isn't  years  that  decide  whether  a  marriage 
is  a  failure.  One  of  the  happiest  marriages  I  ever  knew 
was  between  a  woman  of  fifty  and  a  man  of  thirty.  You 
see — "  she  paused,  and  took  off  her  spectacles,  and  tapped 
the  arm  of  her  chair,  thoughtfully:  "  You  see,  Edith,  you 
don't  understand.  You  are  so  appallingly  young!  You 
think  Love  speaks  only  through  the  senses.  My  dear, 
Love's  highest  speech  is  in  the  Spirit;  the  language  of 
the  senses  is  only  it's  pretty,  stammering,  divine  baby- 
talk!"  Edith  was  silent.  Her  mother  went  on:  "Yes,  it 
isn't  age  that  decides  things.  It's  selfishness  or  unselfish- 
ness. At  present  Eleanor  is  extraordinarily  unselfish,  so  I 
believe  they  may  yet  be  very  happy." 

"Oh,  I  hope  so,  of  course,"  Edith  said — and  put  up  a 
furtive  finger  to  wipe  first  one  cheek,  and  then  the  other. 
.  "Poor  Maurice!"  she  said. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

WHEN  Maurice  got  back  to  the  firelit  library,  he 
said,  filling  his  pipe  with  rather  elaborate  atten- 
tion, and  trying  to  speak  with  good-natured  carelessness, 
"I'm  afraid  Edith  thought  you  didn't  want  her,  Nelly." 
He  was  sorry  the  next  moment  that  he  had  said  even  as 
much  as  that:  Eleanor  was  breathing  quickly,  and  her 
dark,  sad  eyes  were  hard  with  anger. 

"I  don't,"  she  said. 

Maurice  said,  sharply,  "You  have  never  liked  her!" 

"Why  should  I  like  her?  She  talks  to  you  incessantly. 
And  now,  she  looks  at  you;  here — before  me!  Looks  at 
you." 

"Eleanor,  what  on  earth — " 

"Oh,  I  saw  her,  when  you  were  talking  over  there  by 
the  window;  I  watched  her.  She  looked  at  you!  I  am 
not  blind.  I  understand  what  it  means  when  a  girl  looks 
at  a  man  that  way.  And  now  she's  planning  to  be  in 
Mercer  for  three  months?  Well,  that's  simply  to  be  near 
you.  She'd  like  to  live  in  the  same  house  with  you,  I  sup- 
pose !  If  it  wasn't  for  me,  she'd  be  in  love  with  you — per- 
haps she  is,  anyhow?  Yes,  I  think  she  is."  There  was  a 
sick  silence.  "And,  perhaps,"  she  said,  with  a  gasp,  "you 
are  in  love  with  her?" 

He  was  dumb.  The  suddenness  of  the  attack  com- 
pletely routed  him — its  suddenness;  but  more  than  its 
suddenness  was  a  leaping  question  in  his  own  mind.  When 
she  said, ' '  You  are  in  love  with  her  ? "  an  appalled ' '  Am  I  ? " 
was  on  his  lips.  Instantly  he  knew,  what  he  had  not  known, 
at  any  rate  articulately,  that  he  was  in  love  with  Edith. 
His  thoughts  broke  in  galloping  confusion;  his  hand,  hold- 
ing the  hot  bowl  of  his  pipe,  trembled.  He  tried  to  speak, 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  307 

stammered,  said,  with  a  sort  of  gasp,  "Don't — don't  say 
a  thing  like  that!"  Then  he  got  his  breath,  and  ended, 
with  a  composure  that  kept  his  words  slow  and  his  voice 
cold,  "It  is  terrible  to  say  a  thing  like  that  to  me." 

She  flung  out  her  hands.  "What  more  can  I  do  for  you 
than  I  have  done?  Oh,  Maurice — Maurice,  no  woman 
could  love  you  more  than  I  do?  ...  Could  they?" 

"I  am  grateful;  I — "  He  tried  to  speak  gently,  but  his 
voice  had  begun  to  shake  with  angry  terror;  it  was  abom- 
inable, this  thing  she  had  said!  (But  ...  it  was  true.) 
"No;  no  woman  could  have  done  more  for  me  than  you 
have,  Eleanor;  I  am  grateful." 

"Grateful?  Yes.  You  give  me  gratitude."  Maurice  was 
speechless.  "I  thought,  perhaps,  you  loved  me,"  she  said. 
A  minute  later  he  heard  her  going  upstairs  to  her  own 
room. 

He  stood  staring  after  her,  open-mouthed.  Then  he 
said,  under  his  breath,  "Good  God!"  After  a  while  he 
went  over  to  the  fireplace,  and,  standing  with  one  hand  on 
the  mantelpiece,  he  kicked  the  charred  logs  on  the  hearth 
together.  "This  room  is  cold.  I  must  build  the  fire  up. 
.  .  .  Yes,  it's  true.  .  .  .  The  wood  is  too  green  to  burn. 
I'll  order  from  another  man  next  time.  ...  I  suppose 
I've  been  in  love  with  her  for  a  good  while.  I  wonder  if  it 
began  that  night  Jacky  was  sick  .  .  .  and  she  kissed  me? 
No;  it  must  have  been  before  that."  He  stooped  and 
mended  the  fire,  piling  the  logs  together  with  slow  exact- 
ness: "What  life  might  have  been!"  He  took  up  the 
bellows  and  urged  a  little  flame  to  rise  and  flicker  and 
lap  the  wood,  then  burst  to  crackling  blaze.  After  a  while 
he  said,  "Poor  Nelly!"  But  he  had  himself  in  hand  by 
that  time,  and,  though  this  terrifying  knowledge  was 
surging  in  him,  he  knew  that  his  voice  would  not  betray 
him.  He  went  upstairs  to  comfort  her  with  kindly  assur- 
ances that  she  was  wrong.  ("More  lies,"  he  thought, 
wearily.) 

But  apparently  she  didn't  need  comforting!  She  was 
smoothing  her  hair  before  the  glass,  and  seemed  perfectly 


3o8  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

calm.  He  had  expected  tears,  and  violent  reproaches, 
which  he  was  prepared  to  meet  with  either  good-natured 
ridicule  or  quiet  falsehood,  as  the  occasion  might  demand. 
But  nothing  was  demanded.  She  continued  to  brush  her 
hair;  so  he  found  it  quite  easy  to  come  up  behind  her  and 
lay  a  hand  on  her  shoulder,  and  say,  "Nelly,  dear,  that 
wasn't  a  nice  thing  to  say!" 

She  did  not  meet  his  eyes  in  the  mirror;  she  only  said 
(she  was  trembling),  "I  suppose  it  wasn't." 

Maurice  was  puzzled,  but  he  said,  casually,  that  he 
was  sorry  to  have  to  rush  off  that  night.  "I've  got  to 
take  the  Limited  for  St.  Louis.  Mr.  Weston  wants  some 
papers  put  through.  I  hate  to  leave  you." 

She  made  no  answer. 

"I  shall  be  gone  a  week,  maybe  more ;  because  if  I  don't 
pull  the  chestnut  out  of  the  fire  in  St.  Louis,  I'll  have  to 
go  to  some  other  places." 

She  hardly  heard  him;  she  was  saying  to  herself:  "I 
oughtn't  to  have  told  him  she  was  in  love  with  him;  it 
may  make  him  think  so,  himself!" 

"'Guess  I'll  pack  my  grip  now,"  he  said. 

"Maurice,"  she  said,  breathlessly,  "I  didn't  mean — " 
She  was  so  frightened  that  she  couldn't  finish  her  sentence; 
but  he  said,  with  kindly  understanding: 

"Of  course  you  didn't!" 

It  flashed  into  her  mind  that  if  she  left  him  alone,  he 
would  know  that  what  she  had  said  was  so  meaningless 
that  she  didn't  think  it  worth  talking  about.  "I — I'm 
going  to  Auntie's  to  dinner,"  she  told  him,  on  the  spur  of 
the  moment.  "Do  you  mind?" 

"  No ;  of  course  not.  Wait  a  second,  and  I'll  walk  round 
with  you." 

She  said,  unsteadily,  "Oh  no;  you've  got  your  pack- 
ing to  do — "  Then  she  kissed  him  swiftly,  and  hurried 
downstairs. 

"But  Eleanor,  wait!"  he  called;   "I'll  go  with—" 

She  had  gone.  He  heard  the  front  door  close.  He  stood 
still  in  his  perplexity.  What  was  the  matter?  She  had  got 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  309 

over  that  jealousy  of  Edith  in  an  instant ;  got  over  it,  and 
accepted  his  departure  without  all  those  wearying  protes- 
tations of  love  and  loneliness  to  which  he  was  accustomed. 
"Is  she  angry,"  he  told  himself;  "or  just  ashamed  of  hav- 
ing been  so  foolish?"  Mechanically,  he  picked  out  some 
neckties  from  his  drawer,  and  paused.  .  .  .  "But  she 
wasn't  foolish.  I  do  love  Edith.  .  .  .  How  did  she  get  on 
to  it?  She  is  so  good  to  me  about  Jacky — and  I  love 
Edith!"  He  went  on  packing  his  grip.  " I  wonder  if  any 
man  ever  paid  as  I  am  paying? ...  I'll  call  her  up  at  Mrs. 
Newbolt's,  before  I  go,  and  say  good-by." 

No  doubt  he  would  have  done  so,  but  when  he  went 
downstairs  he  found  Johnny  Bennett,  smoking  comfortably 
before  that  very  cheerful  little  fire. 

"I  dropped  in,"  said  Johnny,  "to  ask  for  some  dinner." , 

"If  you'll  take  pot  luck,"  said  Maurice;  "Eleanor  isn't 
at  home,  and  I  don't  know  what  the  lady  below  stairs  will 
work  off  on  us."  (It  would  be  a  relief,  he  thought,  to 
have  somebody  at  table,  so  that  he  would  not  be  alone 
with  his  own  confusion.) 

"I  came,"  Johnny  said,  "to  tell  you  I'm  off." 

"Off?  When?  Whereto?  I  thought  your  electric  per- 
formances were  panning  out  so  well — " 

"Oh,  they're  panning  out  all  right,"  John  said;  "but 
they'll  pan  out  better  in  South  America.  I'm  going  the 
first  of  the  month." 

"South  America!  .  What's  the  matter  with  Pennsyl- 
vania?" 

"Well,"  Johnny  said;   "I  thought  I'd  light  out—" 

Then  they  began  to  talk  climate,  and  consulates,  which 
carried  them  through  dinner,  and  went  on  in  the  library, 
and  Maurice's  surface  interest  in  Johnny's  affairs,  at  least 
kept  him  from  thinking  of  his  own  dismay. 

"But  I  supposed,"  he  said,  and  paused,  "I  sort  of 
thought  you — had  reasons  for  staying  round  here?" 

"There's  no  use  hanging  round,"  John  said;  "it's  bet- 
ter to  pull  out  altogether.  It's  easier  that  way,"  he  said, 
simply.  "  So  I'm  off  for  a  year.  They  wanted  me  to  sign  for 


3io  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

three  years,  but  I  said,  'one. '  Things  may  look  better  for 
me  when  I  get  home." 

Maurice,  standing  with  his  back  to  the  fire,  his  hands  in 
his  pocket,  looked  down  at  the  steady  youngster — looked 
at  the  mild  eyes  behind  those  large  spectacles,  looked  at 
the  clean,  strong  lines  of  the  jaw  and  forehead.  A  good 
fellow.  A  very  good  fellow.  He  wondered  why  Edith 
wouldn't  take  him?  ("It  couldn't  make  any  difference  to 
me,"  he  thought;  "and  I  want  her  to  be  happy.") 

"Johnny,"  he  said,  "you  can  say,  'Mind  your  business,' 
before  I  begin,  if  you  want  to.  Eut  I  don't  think  any- 
body's cutting  you  out?  Better  'try,  try  again.'" 

Johnny  took  his  pipe  from  his  mouth,  bent  forward  to 
shake  the  ashes  out  of  it,  and  stared  into  the  fire.  Then 
he 'said,  clearing  his  throat  once  or  twice:  "I've  bothered 
her,  'trying.'  I  thought  I'd  start  on  a  new  tack." 

"You'll  get  her  yet!"  Maurice  encouraged  him.  He 
wondered,  as  he  spoke,  how  he  could  speak  so  lightly, 
urging  old  Johnny  to  go  ahead  and  make  another  stab  at 
it,  and,  maybe,  "get  her" !  He  wondered  if  he  was  looking 
at  things  the  way  the  dead  look  at  the  living?  He  was  not, 
he  thought,  suffering,  as  he  had  suffered  in  those  first 
moments  when  Eleanor  had  flung  the  truth  at  him. 
"You'll  get  her  yet,"  he  said,  vaguely. 

Johnny  took  out  his  tobacco  pouch,  and  began  to  fill 
his  pipe,  poking  his  thumb  down  into  the  bowl  with  slow 
precision,  then  holding  it  on  a  level  with  his  eyes  and 
squinting  at  it,  to  make  sure  it  was  smooth;  he  seemed 
profoundly  engrossed  by  that  pipe — but  he  put  it  in  his 
mouth  without  lighting  it. 

"Well,  I  don't  know,"  he  said;  "I  haven't  an  awful  lot 
of  hope  that  I'll  ever  get  her.  But  I  thought  I'd  try  this 
way.  Maybe,  if  she  doesn't  see  me  for  a  year.  ..." 

"There's  nobody  ahead  of  you,  anyway,"  Maurice  said, 
absently. 

"Well,  I  don't  know,"  John  Bennett  said  again. 

His  voice  was  so  harsh  that  Maurice's  preoccupation 
sharpened  into  uneasy  attention.  Johnny's  hopes  and 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  3n 

fears  had  not  really  touched  him.  His  encouraging  plati- 
tudes were  only  a  way  of  smothering  his  own  thoughts. 
But  that,  "Well,  I  don't  know — "  woke  a  keenly  attentive 
fear:  was  there  anybody  else?  ("Not  that  that  could 
make  any  difference  to  me. ") 

"You  'don't  know'?"  he  said;  "how  do  you  mean? 
You  think  there  is  somebody?" 

Johnny  Bennett  was  silent;  he  had  an  impulse  to  say 
"you  are  several  kinds  of  a  fool,  old  man."  But  he  was 
silent. 

"Why,  Great  Scott!"  Maurice  protested.  "Buried 
tip  there  in  the  mountains,  she  hardly  knows  a  fellow — 
except  you! — and  me,"  he  added,  with  a  laugh. 

"I  think,"  said  John,  huskily,  "she  has  .  .  .  some  kind 
of  an  ideal  up  her  sleeve.  And  I  don't  fill  the  bill.  Imagi- 
nation, you  know.  A — a  sort  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh 
business.  Remember  how  she  was  always  sort  of  dotty  on 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh  ?  An  ideal,  don't  you  know ' ' ;  Johnny 
rambled  on:  " Girls  are  that  way.  Only  Edith's  the  kind 
that  sticks  to  things." 

"  'Try,  try  again,' "  said  Maurice,  mechanically;  but  his 
blood  suddenly  pounded  in  his  ears. 

"I'm  going  to,"  Johnny  said,  calmly;  and  began  to 
talk  South  America.  Indeed,  he  talked  so  long  that  Mau- 
rice, catching  sight  of  the  clock,  exclaimed  that  he  would 
have  to  run! 

"Johnny,  get  Eleanor  on  the  wire,  will  you,  at  Mrs. 
Newbolt's,  and  tell  her  I'd  have  called  her  up,  but  I  got 
delayed,  and  had  to  leg  it  to  catch  the  train?  Or  maybe 
you  wouldn't  mind  going  round  there,  and  walking  home 
with  her?" 

"Glad  to,"  said  Johnny. 

When  Maurice,  swinging  on  to  the  last  platform  of  the 
last  Pullman,  was  able  to  sit  down  in  his  section,  he  was 
absorbed  in  Johnny  Bennett's  affairs.  "What  did  he 
mean  by  saying  that?  Did  he  mean — "  Johnny's  enig- 
matical words  rang  in  his  ears;  "  I  said  to  'try  again;  no- 
body was  cutting  him  out.'  And  he  said  'She  has  some 


3i2  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

kind  of  an  ideal  up  her  sleeve.'  ...  'A  Sir  Walter  Raleigh 
business'  ..." 

Johnny  Bennett,  walking  toward  Mrs.  Newbolt's,  was 
also  thinking,  in  his  calm  way,  of  just  what  he  had  said 
there  by  Maurice's  fireside.  "Of  course  he  doesn't  see 
why  she  hasn't  fallen  in  love  with  anybody  else.  Any 
decent  fellow  would  be  stupid  about  that  sort  of  thing. 
But  it's  been  that  way  ever  since  she  was  a  child.  And 
I've  loved  her  ever  since  then,  too.  All  the  same,  I'll  only 
sign  up  for  a  year.  Then  I'll  make  another  stab  at  it.  .  .  ." 

When  he  rang  Mrs.  Newbolt's  doorbell,  and  was  told 
that  Eleanor  had  not  been  there,  he  was  perplexed.  "I 
must  have  misunderstood  Maurice,"  he  thought. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

ELEANOR  had  no  intention  of  going  to  Mrs.  New- 
bolt's.  "She'd  talk  Edith  to  me!"  she  said  to  her- 
self; "I  can't  understand  why  she  likes  her!"  Instead 
of  dining  with  her  aunt,  she  meant  to  walk  about  the 
streets  until  she  was  sure  that  Maurice  had  started  for 
the  train;  then  she  would  go  back  to  her  own  house.  So 
she  wandered  down  the  avenue  until,  tired  of  looking  with 
unseeing  eyes  into  shop  windows,  it  occurred  to  her  to 
go  into  the  park;  there,  on  a  bench  on  one  of  the  unfre- 
quented paths,  she  sat  down,  hoping  that  no  one  would 
recognize  her;  it  was  cold,  and  she  shivered  and  looked  at 
her  watch.  Only  six  o'clock !  It  would  be  two  hours  before 
Maurice  would  leave  the  house  for  the  station.  It  seemed 
absurd  to  be  here  in  the  dampness  of  the  March  evening; 
but  she  couldn't  go  home  and  get  into  any  discussion  with 
him;  she  might  burst  out  again  about  Edith! — which 
always  made  him  angry.  She  wished  that  she  had  not 
told  him  that  Edith  was  in  love  with  him.  "It  ought  to 
disgust  him,  but  it  might  flatter  him!"  And  she  oughtn't 
to  have  said  that  other  thing;  she  oughtn't  to  have 
accused  him  of  caring  for  Edith.  "Of  course  he  doesn't. 
And  it  was  a  horrid  thing  to  say.  I  was  angry,  because  I 
was  jealous;  but  it  wasn't  true.  I  wish  I  hadn't  said  it. 
I'll  write  to  him,  and  ask  him  to  forgive  me."  But  the 
other  thing  was  true:  "I  saw  it  in  her  eyes!  She  loves 
him.  But  I  oughtn't  to  have  put  the  idea  into  his  head!" 
The  more  she  thought  of  what  she  had  put  into  Mau- 
rice's head,  the  more  uneasy  she  became.  Oh,  if  she  only 
had  Jacky !  Then,  Edith  could  be  as  brazen  as  she  pleased, 
and  Maurice  would  never  notice  her !  "Of  course  he  doesn't 
love  her;  I'm  certain  of  that! "  she  said  again  and  again, — 


3i4  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

and  all  her  schemes,  wise  and  foolish,  for  getting  possession 
of  the  boy,  began  to  crowd  into  her  mind. 

Then  an  idea  came  to  her  which  fairly  took  her  breath 
away !  A  perfectly  wild  idea,  which  she  dared  not  stop  to 
analyze:  suppose,  instead  of  sitting  here  in  the  cold,  she 
should  go,  now,  boldly,  to  Lily,  and  ask  for  Jacky?  "I 
believe  /  could  persuade  her  to  give  him  to  us!  She 
wouldn't  do  it  for  Maurice,  but  she  might  for  me!" 

She  got  on  her  feet  with  a  spring !  Her  spiritual  energy 
was  like  her  physical  energy  that  night  on  the  mountain. 
Again  she  was  lifting — lifting!  This  time  it  was  the 
weight  of  a  Love  which  might  die!  She  was  dragging  it, 
carrying  it !  her  very  soul  straining  under  her  purpose  of 
keeping  it  alive  by  the  touch  of  a  child's  hand!  .  .  .  Why 
not  go  and  see  Lily  now?  "She'll  have  finished  her  supper 
by  the  time  I  get  to  her  house;  it's  at  the  very  end  of 
Maple  Street!"  If  Lily  consented,  Eleanor  might  even 
get  back  to  her  own  house  in  time  to  see  Maurice,  and 
tell  him  what  she  had  accomplished  before  he  started  for 
his  train !  But  she  would  have  to  hurry.  .  .  . 

She  actually  ran  out  of  the  park  toward  the  street; 
then  stood  for  an  endless  five  minutes,  waiting  for  the 
Medfield  car.  "Perhaps  I  can  make  her  let  me  bring  Jacky 
home  with  me!"  she  said — which  showed  to  what  heights 
beyond  common  sense  she  had  risen. 

At  the  little  house  on  Maple  Street  she  rang  the  bell, 
though  she  had  a  crazy  impulse  to  bang  upon  the  door 
to  hurry  Lily!  But  she  rang,  and  rang  again,  before  she 
heard  a  child's  voice:  "Maw.  Somebody  at  the  door." 

"Well,  go  open  it,  can't  you?" 

She  heard  little  scuffling  steps  on  the  oilcloth  in  the  hall ; 
then  the  door  opened,  and  Jacky  stood  there.  He  fixed 
his  blue,  impersonal  eyes  upon  her,  and  waited. 

"Is  your  mother  in?"  Eleanor  said,  breathlessly. 

"Yes,  ma'am,"  said  Jacky. 

"Who  is  it?"  Lily  called  to  him;  she  was  somewhere  in 
the  back  of  the  house,  and  Eleanor  could  hear  the  clatter 
of  dishes  being  gathered  up  from  an  unseen  supper  table. 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  315 

Jacky,  unable  to  answer  his  mother's  question,  was  calmly 
silent. 

"My  land!  That  child's  a  reg'lar  dummy!  Jacky,  who 
wit?" 

"I  do'  know,"  Jacky  called  back. 

"I  am  Mrs.  Curtis,"  Eleanor  said;  "I  want  to  see  your 
mother." 

"She  says,"  Jacky  called — then  paused,  because  it 
occurred  to  him  to  hang  on  to  the  door  knob  and  swing 
,back  and  forth,  his  heels  scraping  over  the  oilcloth;  "she 
says,"  said  Jacky,  "she's  Mrs.  Curtis." 

The  noise  of  the  dishes  stopped  short.  In  the  dining 
room  Lily  stood  stock-still;  "My  God!"  she  said.  Then 
her  eyes  narrowed  and  her  jaw  set;  she  whipped  off  her 
apron  and  turned  down  her  sleeves ;  she  had  made  up  her 
mind:  "/'//  lie  it  through." 

She  came  out  in  the  hall,  which  was  scented  with  rose 
geraniums  and  reeked  with  the  smell  of  bacon  fat,  and 
said,  with  mincing  politeness,  "Were  you  wishing  to  see 
me?" 

"Yes,"  Eleanor  said. 

"Step  right  in,"  said  Lily,  opening  the  parlor  door. 
"Won't  you  be  seated? "  Then  she  struck  a  match  on  the 
sole  of  her  shoe,  lit  the  gas,  blew  out  the  match,  and 
turned  to  look  at  her  visitor.  She  put  her  hand  over  her 
mouth  and  gasped.  Under  her  breath  she  said,  "His 
mother!" 

"Mrs.  Dale,"  Eleanor  began — 

"Well,  there!"  said  Lily,  pleasantly  (but  she  was  pale) ; 
"I  guess  you  have  the  advantage  of  me.  What  did  you 
say  your  name  was?" 

"My  name  is  Curtis.  Mrs.  Dale,  I — I  know  about  your 
little  boy." 

"Is  that  so?"  Lily  said,  with  the  simper  proper  when 
speaking  to  strangers. 

"I  mean,"  Eleanor  said,  "I  know  about — "  her  lips 
were  so  dry  she  stopped  to  moisten  them — "about  Mr. 

Curtis  and  you." 
21 


3x6  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

"I  ain't  acquainted  with  your  son." 

Eleanor  caught  her  breath,  but  went  on,  "I  haven't 
come  to  reproach  you." 

Lily  tossed  her  head.  "Reproach?  Me?  Well,  I  must 
say,  I  don't  see  no  cause  why  you  should!  /  don't  know 
no  Mr.  Curtis!"  She  was  alertly  on  guard  for  Maurice; 
"I  guess  you've  mixed  me  up  with  some  other  lady." 

4 'Please I"  Eleanor  said;  "Iknow.  He  told  me — about 
Jacky." 

Instantly  Lily's  desire  to  defend  Maurice  was  tempered 
by  impatience  with  him ;  the  idea  of  him  letting  on  to  his 
mother!  Then,  noticing  her  boy,  who  was  silently  observ- 
ing the  caller  from  the  doorway,  she  said: 

"Jacky!   Go  right  out  of  this  room." 

"Won't,"  said  Jack}'-.  "She  gimme  the  horn,"  he  re- 
marked. 

"Aw,  now,  sweet}'',  go  on  out!"  Lily  entreated. 

Jacky  said,  calmly,  "Won't." 

At  which  his  mother  got  up  and  stamped  her  foot. 
"Clear  right  out  of  this  room,  or  I'll  see  to  you!  Do  you 
hear  me?  Go  on,  now,  or  I'll  give  you  a  reg'lar  spanking ! " 

Jacky  ran.  He  never  obeyed  her  when  he  could  help  it, 
but  he  always  recognized  the  moment  when  he  couldn't 
help  it.  Lily  closed  the  door,  and  stood  with  her  back 
against  it,  looking  at  her  caller. 

"Well,"  she  said,  "if  you  are  on  to  it,  I'm  sure  you  ain't 
going  to  make  trouble  for  him  with  his  wife." 

"I  am  his  wife." 

"His  wife? "  They  looked  at  each  other  for  a  speechess 
moment.  Then  the  tears  sprang  to  Lily's  eyes.  "Oh, 
you  poor  soul ! "  she  said.  "Say,  don't  feel  bad !  It's  pretty 
near  ten  years  ago ;  he  was  just  a  kid.  Since  then — honest 
to  God,  I  give  you  my  word,  he  'ain't  hardly  said  'How 
do  you  do'  to  me!" 

"I  know,"  Eleanor  said;  her  hands  were  gripped  hard 
together;  "I  know  that.  I  know  he  has  been  .  .  .  per- 
fectly true  to  me — lately.  I  am  not  saying  a  word  about 
that.  It's  the  child.  I  want  to  make  a  proposition  to  you 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  317 

about  the  child."  Her  lips  trembled,  but  she  smiled;  she 
remembered  to  smile,  because  if  she  didn't  look  pleasant 
Lily  might  get  angry.  She  was  a  little  frightened ;  but  she 
gave  a  nervous  laugh.  She  spoke  with  gentleness,  almost 
with  sweetness.  "I  came  to  see  you,  Mrs.  Dale,  because  I 
hope  you  and  I  can  make  some  arrangement  about  the 
little  boy.  I  want  to  help  you  by  relieving  you  of — of  his 
support.  I  mean,"  said  Eleanor,  still  smiling  with  her  trem- 
bling lips,  "I  mean,  I  will  take  him,  and  bring  him  up,  so 
as  to  save  you  the  expense."  Lily's  amazed  recoil  made  her 
break  into  entreaty;  "My  husband  wants  him,  and  I  do, 
too!  I  thought  perhaps  you'd  let  him  go  home  with  me 
to-night?  I — I  promise  I'll  take  the  best  of  care  of  him!" 

Lily  was  too  dumfounded  to  speak,  but  her  thoughts 
raced.  "For  the  land's  sake!"  she  said  under  her  breath. 
She  was  sitting  down  now,  but  her  hands  in  her  lap  had 
doubled  into  rosy  fighting  fists. 

Her  silence  terrified  Eleanor.  "If  you'll  give  him  to 
me,"  she  said,  "I  will  do  anything  for  you — anything! 
If  you'll  just  let  Air.  Curtis  have  him."  She  did  not  mean 
to,  but  suddenly  she  was  crying,  and  began  to  fumble 
for  her  handkerchief. 

"Well,  if  this  ain't  the  limit!"  said  Lily,  and  jumped 
up  and  ran  to  her,  and  put  her  arms  around  her.  ("Here, 
take  mine!  It's  clean. ")  "Say,  I'm  that  sorry  for  you,  I 
don't  know  what  to  do!"  Her  own  tears  overflowed. 

Eleanor,  wincing  away  from  the  gush  of  perfumery 
from  the  little  clean  handkerchief,  clutched  at  Lily's 
small  plump  hand —  "I'll  tell  you  what  to  do,"  Eleanor 
said ;  "  Give  me  Jacky! ' ' 

Lily,  kneeling  beside  her,  cried,  honestly  and  openly. 
"There! — now!"  she  said,  patting  Eleanor's  shoulder; 
"don't  you  cry!  Mrs.  Curtis,  now  look," — she  spoke 
soothingly,  as  if  to  a  child,  with  her  arm  around  Eleanor — 
"you  know  I  can't  let  my  little  boy  go?  Why,  think  how 
you'd  feel  yourself,  if  you  had  a  little  boy  and  anybody 
tried  to  get  him.  Would  you  give  him  up?  'Course  you 
wouldn't!  Why,  I  wouldn't  let  Jacky  go  away  from  me, 


3i8  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

even  for  a  day,  not  for  the  world!  An'  he  ain't  anything 
to  Mr.  Curtis.  Honest!  That's  the  truth.  Now,  don't  you 
cry,  dear!" 

"You  can  see  him  often;  I  promise  you,  you  can  see 
him." 

In  spite  of  her  pity,  Lily's  yellow  eyes  gleamed:  "'See' 
my  own  child?  Well,  I  guess!" 

"I'll  give  you  anything,"  Eleanor  said;  "I  have  a 
little  money — about  six  hundred  dollars  a  year;  I'll  give 
it  to  you,  if  you'll  let  Mr.  Curtis  have  him." 

"Sell  Jacky  for  six  hundred  dollars?"  Lily  said.  "I 
wouldn't  sell  him  for  six  thousand  dollars,  or  six  million!" 
She  drew  away  from  Eleanor's  beseeching  hands.  "How 
long  has  Mr.  Curtis  thought  enough  of  Jacky  to  pay  six 
hundred  dollars  for  him?  You  can  tell  Mr.  Curtis,  from 
me,  that  I  ain't  no  cheap  trader,  to  give  away  my  child 
for  six  hundred  dollars!"  She  sprang  up,  putting  her 
clenched  fists  on  her  fat  hips,  and  wagging  her  head. 
"Why,"  she  demanded,  raucously,  "didn't  you  have  a 
child  of  your  own  for  him,  'stead  of  trying  to  get  another 
woman's  child  away  from  her?" 

It  was  a  hideous  blow.  Eleanor  gasped  with  pain;  and 
instantly  Lily's  anger  was  gone. 

"Say!  I  didn't  mean  that!  'Course  you  couldn't,  at 
your  age.  I  oughtn't  to  have  said  it!" 

Eleanor,  dumb  for  a  moment  after  that  deadly  ques- 
tion, began,  faintly:  "  Mr.  Curtis  will  do  so  much  for  him, 
Mrs.  Dale;  he'll  educate  him,  and — " 

"I  can  educate  him,"  Lily  said;  "you  tell  Mr.  Curtis 
that;  you  tell  him  I  thank  him  for  nothing! — /  can  edu- 
cate my  child  to  beat  the  band.  I  don't  want  any  help 
from  him.  But —  '  she  was  on  her  knees  again,  stroking 
Eleanor's  shoulder — "but  if  he's  mean  to  you  because 
you  haven't  had  any  children,  I — I — I'll  see  to  him!  Well 
— I've  always  thought,  what  with  him  fussing  about 
'grammar,'  and  'truth,'  he'd  be  a  hard  man  to  live  with. 
But  if  he's  been  mean  to  you  he'd  ought  to  be' 
ashamed  of  himself!" 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  319 

"Oh,  he  doesn't  even  know  that  I  have  come!"  Eleanor 
said;  "he  mustn't  know  it.  Oh,  please!"  She  was  terri- 
fied. "Don't  tell  him,  Mrs.  Dale.  Promise  me  you  won't! 
He  would  be  angry." 

Her  frightened  despair  was  pitiful;  Lily  was  at  her 
wits'  end.  "My  soul  and  body!"  she  thought,  "what  am 
I  going  to  do  with  her?"  But  what  was  all  this  business? 
Mrs.  Curtis  asking  for  Jacky — and  Mr.  Curtis  not  know- 
ing it?  What  was  all  this  funny  business?  "Now  I  tell 
you,"  she  said;  "you  and  me  are  just  two  ladies  who  un- 
derstand each  other,  and  I'm  going  to  be  straight  with 
you:  if  Mr.  Curtis  is  trying  to  get  my  child  away  from 
me,  he'll  have  a  sweet  time  doing  it !  There's  other  places 
than  Medfield  to  live  in.  I  have  a  friend  in  New  York,  a 
society  lady ;  she's  always  after  me  to  come  and  live  there. 
Mind!  I'm  not  mad  at  you,  you  poor  woman  that  couldn't 
have  a  baby — it's  him  I'm  mad  at!  He  knows  Jacky  is 
mine,  and  I'll  go  to  New  York  before  I'll — " 

"Oh,  don't  say  that!"  Eleanor  pleaded;  "my  husband 
hasn't  tried  to  get  Jacky;  it's  just  I!" 

She  saw,  with  panic,  that  what  Maurice  had  said  was 
true — Lily  might  "run"!  If  she  did,  there  would  be  no 
hope  of  getting  Jacky . . .  and  Edith  would  be  in  Mercer. . . . 

"Mrs.  Dale,  promise  me  you'll  stay  in  Medfield?  It 
was  only  I  who  was  trying  to  get  Jacky;  Mr.  Curtis  never 
thought  of  such  a  thing !  I  wanted  him.  I'd  do  everything 
for  him;  I'd — I'd  give  him  music  lessons." 

"Honest,"  said  Lily,  soberly,  "I  believe  you're  crazy." 

She  looked  crazy — this  poor,  gray-haired  woman  of 
pitiful  dignity  and  breeding.  ("I  bet  she's  sixty!"  Lily 
thought) — this  old,  childless  woman,  with  a  "Mrs."  to 
her  name,  pleading  with  a  mother  to  give  up  her  boy,  so 
he  could  have  "music  lessons"!  "And  Mr.  Curtis  's  up 
against  that"  Lily  thought,  and  instantly  her  anger  at 
Maurice  ebbed.  "There,  dear,"  she  said,  touching  Elea- 
nor's wet  cheeks  gently  with  that  perfumed  handkerchief; 
"I  don't  believe  you've  had  any  supper.  I'm  going  to 
get  you  something  to  eat — " 


320  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

"No,  please;  please  no!"  Eleanor  said.  She  had  risen. 
She  thought,  "If  she  says  'dear'  again,  I'll— I'll  die!" 
...  "I  promise  you  on  my  word  of  honor,"  she  said, 
faintly,  "that  I  won't  try  to  take  Jacky  away  from  you, 
if —  "  she  paused;  it  was  terrible  to  have  a  secret  with  this 
woman;  it  put  her  in  her  power,  but  she  couldn't  help  it — 
"I  won't  try  to  get  him,  if  you  won't  tell  Mr.  Curtis  that 
I  ...  have  been  here?  Please  promise  me!" 

"Don't  you  worry,"  Lily  said,  reassuringly;  "I  won't 
give  you  away  to  him." 

Eleanor  was  moving,  stumbling  a  little,  toward  the 
door;  Lily  hesitated,  then  ran  and  caught  her  own  coat 
and  hat  from  the  rack  in  the  hall. 

"Wait!"  she  said,  pinning  her  hat  on  at  a  hasty  and 
uncertain  angle;  "I'm  going  with  you!  It  ain't  right  for 
you  to  go  by  yourself.  .  .  .  Jacky,"  she  called  out  to 
the  kitchen,  "you  be  a  good  boy !  Maw  '11  be  home  soon." 

Eleanor  shook  her  head  in  wordless  protest.  But  Lily 
had  tucked  her  hand  under  her  arm,  and  was  walking 
along  beside  her.  "He  ought  to  look  out  for  you!"  Lily 
said;  "I  declare,  I've  a  mind  to  tell  that  man  what  I 
think  of  him!"  On  the  car,  while  Eleanor  with  shaking 
hands  was  opening  her  purse,  Lily  quickly  paid  both  fares, 
saying,  politely,  in  answer  to  Eleanor's  confused  protest, 
"  That's  all  right ! "  There  was  no  talk  between  them.  Lily 
was  too  perplexed  to  say  anything,  and  Eleanor  was  too 
frightened.  So  they  rode,  side  by  side,  almost  to  Maurice's 
door.  There,  standing  on  the  step  while  Eleanor  took  her 
latch  key  from  her  pocketbook,  Lily  said,  cheerfully, 
"Now  you  go  and  get  a  cup  of  tea — you're  all  wore  out! " 
Then  she  hurried  off  to  catch  a  Medfield  car.  "I  declare," 
said  little  Lily,  "I  don't  know  which  is  the  worse  off,  him 
or  her!" 


ELEANOR,  letting  herself  into  her  silent  house,  saw, 
with  relief,  that  the  library  was  dark,  and  knew  that 
Maurice  had  gone  to  the  station  and  she  could  be  alone. 
She  felt  her  way  into  the  room,  blundering  against  his 
big  chair;  the  fire  was  almost  out,  and  without  waiting  to 
turn  on  the  light  she  thrust  some  kindling  under  a  charred 
log  and  knelt  down  and  took  up  the  bellows.  A  spark 
brightened,  ran  backward  under  the  film  of  ashes,  then  a 
flame  hesitated,  caught — and  there  was  a  little  winking 
blaze. 

"Another  failure,"  Eleanor  said.  She  remembered  with 
what  eager  hope  she  had  started  for  Lily's  house;  "I 
was  going  to  'bring  him  home'  with  me!  What  a  fool  I 
was!  ...  I  always  fail,"  she  said.  Once  more,  she  had 
"marched  up  a  hill  —  and  —  then  —  marched  —  down 
— again"!  Her  sense  of  failure  was  like  a  dragging  weight 
under  her  breastbone !  She  had  not  made  Maurice  happy ; 
she  had  not  given  him  children;  she  had  not  kept  Edith 
out  of  his  life.  Failure!  Failure!  "But  he  loves  me;  he 
said  so,  when  I  told  him  I  forgave  him  about  Lily.  Of 
course  I  oughtn't  to  have  married  him.  But  I  loved  him 
...  so  much.  And  I  did  want  to  have  just  a  little  happi- 
ness! I  never  had  had  any."  She  sat  there,  the  bellows 
in  her  white,  ineffectual  hands,  looking  into  the  fire;  how 
capable  Lily's  hands  were!  She  remembered  the  sturdy 
left  hand,  and  that  shiny  band  of  gold.  .  .  .  Then  she  looked 
at  her  own  slender  wedding  ring,  and  that  made  her  think 
of  the  circle  of  braided  grass;  and  the  locust  blossoms; 
and  the  field — and  the  children  who  were  to  come  there 


322  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

on  the  wedding  anniversaries !  And  now — Maurice's  child 
called  another  woman  "mother"! .  .  .  Well,  she  had  tried 
to  bring  him  back  to  Maurice;  tried,  and  failed,  with 
hideous  humiliation — for,  instead  of  bringing  Jacky  back, 
this  "mother"  had  brought  her  back!  .  .  .  "And  she  paid 
my  car  fare!"  It  was  intolerable.  I  must  send  her  five 
cents,  somehow!" 

She  sat  on  the  floor,  leaning  against  Maurice's  chair,' 
until  midnight;  the  log  burned  through,  broke  apart,  and 
smoldered  into  ashes.  Once  she  put  her  cheek  down  on 
the  broad  arm  of  the  chair,  then  kissed  it — for  his  hand 
had  rested  on  it! — his  dear  young  hand —  In  the  deep- 
ening chilliness,  watching  the  ashes,  she  ached  with  the 
senee  of  her  last  failure ;  but  most  of  the  time  she  thought 
of  Edith,  and  of  what  she  believed  she  had  read  in  those 
humorous,  candid  eyes.  "She  dared,  before  me! — to 
show  him  that  she  was  in  love  with  him!  He  doesn't  care 
for  her — I  know  that.  But  I  won't  have  her  come  here,  to 
my  own  house,  and  make  love  to  him.  How  can  I  keep 
her  from  coming  ?  Oh,  if  I  could  only  get  Jacky ! ' ' 

But  she  couldn't  get  him.  She  had  accepted  that  as 
final.  The  talk  in  Lily's  parlor  proved  that  there  was  not 
the  slightest  hope  of  getting  Jacky.  So  the  only  thing  for 
her  to  do  was  to  keep  Edith  out  of  her  house.  When,  at 
nearly  one  o'clock,  shivering,  she  went  up  to  her  room,  she 
was  absorbed  in  thinking  how  she  could  do  this.  With 
any  other  girl  it  would  have  been  simple  enough;  never 
invite  her !  But  not  Edith.  Edith  came  without  an  invita- 
tion. Edith  had,  Eleanor  thought,  "no  delicacy."  She 
had  always  been  that  way.  She  had  always  lacked  ordinary 
refinement!  From  the  very  first,  she  had  run  after  Mau- 
rice. "She  is  capable  of  kissing  him,"  Eleanor  told  herself; 
"and  saying  she  did  it  because  he  was  like  a  brother!" 
Strangely  enough,  in  this  blaze  of  jealousy  she  had  no 
flicker  of  resentment  at  Lil)  !  Lily  (now  that  she  had  seen 
her)  was  to  Eleanor  merely  the  woman  to  whom  Jacky 
belonged.  Looking  back  on  those  months  that  followed 
her  discovery  of  Lily,  and  contrasting  the  agony  she  had 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  323 

felt  then  with  her  despair  about  Edith  now,  she  was  faintly 
surprised  at  the  difference  in  her  pain.  This  was  probably 
because  faithlessness  of  the  body  is  not  so  deadly  an  insult 
to  Love  as  faithlessness  of  the  mind.  But  Eleanor  did  not, 
of  course,  make  any  such  explanation.  She  just  said  to 
herself  that  Maurice  had  been  a  boy  when  he  had  been 
untrue  to  her,  and  she  herself  had  been,  in  some  ways, 
to  blame;  and  he  had  confessed,  and  been  forgiven.  So 
Lily  was  now  of  no  consequence — except  as  she  inter- 
fered with  Eleanor's  passionate  wish  to  have  Jacky.  So 
she  did  not  hate  Lily,  or  fear  her  (though  she  was  humili- 
ated at  that  car  fare!).  But  she  did  hate  Edith,  and  fear 
of  her  was  agony.  ...  So  she  would,  somehow,  keep  her 
out  of  the  house! 

Just  as  she  was  getting  into  bed,  she  wiped  her  eyes,  then 
cringed  at  a  gust  of  perfumery — and  realized  that  she 
had  brought  Lily's  handkerchief  back  with  her!  It  was 
a  last  abasement:  the  woman's  horrible  handkerchief. 
She  burst  into  hysterical  weeping.  .  .  .  The  next  morn- 
ing, when  she  came  down  to  breakfast,  her  face  was  hag- 
gard with  those  ravaging  tears,  and  with  the  fatigue  of 
hating.  Even  before  she  had  her  coffee,  she  burned  the 
scented  scrap  of  machine-embroidered  linen,  pressing 
it  down  between  the  logs  in  the  library  fireplace;  but  she 
could  not  burn  her  hate;  it  burned  her! 

She  was  so  worn  out  that  when,  a  little  before  luncheon, 
Edith  suddenly  came  breezily  in,  she  was,  at  first,  too 
confused  to  know  what  to  say  to  her.  ...  It  was  an  in- 
credibly mild  day;  on  the  shady  side  of  the  back  yard 
there  was  still  a  sooty  heap  of  melting  snow,  but  the  sky 
was  turquoise,  soaring  without  a  cloud  and  brimmed 
with  light,  so  that  the  shadows  of  the  bare  branches  of 
the  poplar,  clear-cut  like  jet,  crisscrossed  on  the  brick 
path;  in  the  border,  the  brown  fangs  of  the  tulips  had 
bitten  up  through  the  wet  earth,  and  two  militant  cro- 
cuses had  raised  their  tight-furled  purple  standards. 
Eleanor,  tempted  by  the  sunshine,  had  come  here,  muffled 
up  in  an  elderly  white  shawl,  to  sit  by  the  little  painted 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

table — built  so  long  ago  for  Edith's  pleasure!  She  had 
put  old  Bingo's  basket  in  the  sun,  and  stroked  him  gently; 
he  was  very  helpless  now,  and  ate  nothing  except  from  her 
hands. 

' ' Poor  little  Bingo !"  Eleanor  said ;  "dear  little  Bingo ! V 
Bingo  growled,  and  Eleanor  looked  up  to  see  why — Edith 
was  on  the  iron  veranda. 

"Hullo!"  Edith  said,  gayly;  "isn't  it  a  wonderful  day? 
I  just  ran  in —  "  She  came  down  the  twisted  stairway  and, 
unasked  and  smiling,  sat  down  at  the  table.  "Bingo! 
Don't  you  know  your  friends?  One  would  think  I  was  a 
burglar !  Oh,  Eleanor,  the  tulips  are  up  I  Do  you  remember 
when  Maurice  and  I  planted  them?" 

Eleanor's  throat  tightened.  She  made  some  gasping 
assent. 

"I  came  'round,"  Edith  said — her  frank  eyes  looked 
straight  into  Eleanor's  eyes,  dark  and  agonized — "I  ran 
in,  because  I'm  afraid  you  thought,  yesterday,  that  I 
wanted  to  quarter  myself  on  you?  And  I  just  wanted 
to  say,  don't  give  it  a  thought!  I  perfectly  under- 
stand that  sometimes  it's  inconvenient  to  have  com- 
pany, and — " 

"It's  not  inconvenient  to  have  company,"  Eleanor  said. 

Edith  stopped  short.  ("What  a  dead  give-away!"  she 
thought;  "she  dislikes  me!")  Then  she  tried,  generously, 
to  cover  the  "give-away"  up:  She  said  something  about 
guests  and  servants:  "We're  having  an  awful  time  at 
Green  Hill — servants  are  the  limit!  When  a  maid  stays 
six  weeks,  we  call  her  an  old  family  retainer!" 

Eleanor  said,  "I  have  no  difficulty  with  maids.  That  is 
not  why  I  prefer  not  to  have  .  .  .  company." 

By  this  time,  of  course,  Edith's  one  thought  was  to  get 
away,  with  dignity;  but  dignity,  when  you've  had  your 
face  slapped,  is  almost  impossible.  So  Edith  (being  Edith  1) 
chose  Truth,  and  didn't  trouble  herself  with  dignity! 
"Eleanor,"  she  said,  "I  know  it's  me  you  don't  want.  I 
felt  it  last  night.  I'm  afraid  I've  done  something  that  has 
offended  you.  Have  I?  Truly,  Eleanor,  I  haven't  meant 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  325 

to!  What  is  it?  Let's  talk  it  out.  Eleanor,  what  heave  I 
done?"  She  put  her  hands  down  on  Eleanor's,  clasped 
rigidly  on  the  table, 

"Please!"  Eleanor  said,  and  drew  her  hands  away. 

"Oh,"  Edith  said,  pitifully,  ''you  are  troubled!" 

Eleanor  said,  with  a  gasp:  "Not  at  all.  ...  Edith,  I 
am  afraid  I  must  ask  you  to  .  ,  .  excuse  me.  I'm  busy." 

Edith  was  too  amazed  to  speak;  she  could  not,  indeed, 
think  of  anything  to  say!  This  wasn't  "dislike."  "Why, 
she  hates  me!"  she  thought.  "Why  does  she  hate  me? 
Shall  I  not  notice  it?  Shall  I  talk  about  something  else?" 
But  she  could  not  talk  of  anything  else;  she  could  only 
speak  her  swift,  honest  thought:  "Eleanor,  why  do  you 
dislike  me?  Maurice  and  I  have  been  friends — we  have 
been  like  brother  and  sister— ever  since  I  can  remember. 
Oh,  Eleanor,  I  want  you  to  like  me,  too!  Please  don't 
keep  me  away  from  you  and  Maurice!" 

Eleanor  said,  rapidly:  "He's  not  your  brother;  and  it 
would  be  difficult  to  keep  you  away  from  him.  You  go 
to  his  office  to  find  him." 

There  was  a  dead  silence,  Edith  grew  very  pale.  At 
last  she  understood.  Eleanor  was  jealous.  ...  Of  her! 
They  looked  at  each  other,  the  angry  woman  and  the 
dumfounded  girl  "Jealous?  Of  me?"  Edith  thought. 
"Why  me?  Maurice  only  cares  for  me  as  if  I  was  his 
sister!  ., . .  ,  And  I  don't  do  Eleanor  any  harm  by — loving 
him."  .. .  .  Eleanor  was  gasping  out  a  torrent  of  assailing 
words: 

"Girls  are  different  from  what  they  were  in  my  day/ 
Then,  they  didn't  openly  run  after  men!  Now,  appar- 
ently, they  do.  Certainly  you  do.  You  always  have. 
I'm  not  blind,  Edith.  I  have  known  what  was  going  on; 
when  you  were  living  with  us  and  I  had  a  headache,  you 
used  to  talk  to  Ki-m,  and  try  and  be  clever — to  make  him 
think  I  was  dull,  when  it  was  only  that — I  was  too  ill  to 
talk!  And  you  kept  him  down  in  the  garden  until  mid- 
night, when  he  might  have  been  sitting  with  me  on  the 
porch.  And  you  made  him  go  skating.  And  now 


326  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

look  at  him!    I  know  what  that  means.    A  girl  doesn't 
look  that  way  at  a  man,  unless — " 

There  was  dead  silence. 

"Unless  she's  in  love  with  him.  But  don't  think  that, 
though  you  are  in  love  with  him,  he  cares  for  you!  He 
does  not.  He  cares  for  no  one  but  me.  He  told  me  so." 

Silence. 

"Can  you  deny  that  you  care  for  my  husband?" 
Edith  opened  her  lips — and  closed  them  again.  "You 
don't  deny  it,"  Eleanor  said;  "you  can't"  She  put  her 
head  down  on  her  arms  on  the  table;  her  fifty  years 
engulfed  her.  She  said,  in  a  whisper,  "He  doesn't 
love  me." 

Instantly  Edith's  arms  were  around  her.  "Eleanor, 
dear!  Don't — don't!  He  does  love  you — he  does!  I'd 
perfectly  hate  him  if  he  didn't!  Oh,  Eleanor,  poor  Elea- 
nor! Don't  cry;  Maurice  does  love  you.  He  doesn't  care 
a  copper  for  me ! "  The  tears  were  running  down  her  face. 
She  bent  and  kissed  Eleanor's  hands,  clenched  on  the 
table,  and  then  tried  to  draw  the  gray  head  against  her 
tender  young  breast. 

Eleanor  put  out  frantic  hands,  as  if  to  push  away  some 
suffocating  pressure.  Both  of  these  women — Lily,  with 
her  car  fare  and  her  handkerchief;  Edith,  with  her  impu- 
dent "advice"  to  Maurice  not  to  have  secrets  from  his 
wife — pitied  her!  She  would  not  be  pitied  by  them! 

"Don't  touch  me!"  she  said,  furiously;  "you  love  my 
husband." 

Edith  heard  her  own  blood  pounding  in  her  ears. 

"  Don't  you  ? "  said  Eleanor;  her  face  was  furrowed  with 
pain ;  ' '  Don't  you  ? " 

It  was  a  moment  of  naked  truth.  "I  have  loved  Mau- 
rice," Edith  said,  steadily,  "ever  since  I  was  a  child.  I 
always  shall.  I  would  like  to  love  you,  too,  Eleanor,  if 
you  would  let  me.  But  nothing — nothing!  shall  ever  break  4 
up  my  .  .  .  affection  for  Maurice." 

"You  might  as  well  call  it  love." 

Edith,  rising,  said,  very  low:   "Well,  I  will  call  it  love.1 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  327 

I  am  not  ashamed  I  am  not  wronging  you.  You  have 
no  need  to  be  jealous  of  me,  Eleanor.  He  cares  nothing 
for  me." 

Eleanor  struck  the  table  with  her  clenched  fists.  "You 
shall  never  have  him!"  she  said. 

Edith  turned,  silently,  and  went  up  the  veranda  stairs 
and  out  of  the  house. 


CHAPTER  XXXm 

T  X  THEN  Eleanor  got  her  breath,  after  that  crazy  out- 
V  V  break,  she  rushed  up  to  her  own  room,  bolted  the 
door,  fell  on  her  knees  at  her  bedside,  and  told  herself  in 
frantic  gasps,  that  she  would  fight  Edith  Houghton! 
Grapple  with  her!  Beat  her  away  from  Maurice!  " I  must 
do  something — do  something — " 

But  what?  There  was  only  one  weapon  with  which  she 
could  vanquish  Edith — Maurice's  love  for  his  son..  Jackyl 
She  must  have  Jacky.  .  .  . 

But  how  could  she  get  him? 

She  knew  she  couldn't  get  him  with  Lily's  consent 
Frantic  with  jealousy  as  she  was,  she  recognized  that! 
;  Yet,  over  and  over,  during  the  week  that  followed  that 
hour  in  the  garden  with  Edith,  she  said  to  herself,  "If 
Maurice  had  Jacky,  Edith  would  be  nothing  to  him."  .  .  „ 
It  was  at  this  point  that  one  day  something  made  her 
add,  "Suppose  he  had  Ldy,  too?"  Then  he  could  have 
Jacky. 

"If  I  were  dead,  he  could  marry  Lily." 

At  first  this  was  just  one  of  those  vague  thoughts  that 
blew  through  her  mind,  as  straws  and  dead  leaves  blow 
down  a  dreary  street.  But  this  straw  caught,  so  to  speak, 
and  more  straws  gathered  and  heaped  about  it.  The  idea 
lodged,  and  another  idea  lodged  with  it:  If,  to  get  his 
child,  he  married  Jacky's  mother,  Edith  would  never 
reach  him!  And  if,  by  dying,  Eleanor  gave  Maurice  his 
child,  he  would  always  love  her  for  her  gift;  she  would 
always  be  "wonderful."  And  Edith?  Why,  he  couldn't* 
he  couldn't — if  his  wife  died  to  give  him  Jacky — think  of 
Edith  again!  Jacky,  Eleanor  thought,  viciously,  "would 
slam  the  door  in  Edith's  face!" 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  329 

Perhaps,  if  Maurice  had  been  at  home,  instead  of  being 
obliged  to  prolong  that  western  business  trip,  the  sanity  of 
his  presence  would  have  swept  the  straws  and  dead  leaves 
away  and  left  Eleanor's  mind  bleak,  of  course,  with  dis- 
appointment about  Jacky  and  dread  of  Edith — but  sound. 
As  it  was,  alone  in  her  melancholy,  uncomfortable  house, 
tiny  innumerable  "reasons"  for  considering  the  one  way 
by  which  Maurice  could  get  Jacky,  heaped  and  heaped 
above  common  sense:  ten  years  ago  Mrs.  Newbolt  said 
that  if  Eleanor  had  not  "caught"  Maurice  when  he  was 
young,  he  would  have  taken  Edith;  that  was  a  straw. 
Two  years  ago  a  woman  in  the  street  car  offered  her  a 
seat,  because  she  looked  as  old  as  her  mother.  Another 
straw !  Lily  supposed  she  was  Maurice's  mother !  A  straw. 
.  . .  Edith  admitted — had  impudently  flung  into  Eleanor's 
face! — the  confession  that  she  was  "in  love  with  him!" — 
and  Edith  was  to  be  in  town  for  three  months.  Oh,  what  a 
sheaf  of  straws!  Edith  would  see  him  constantly.  She 
would  "look  at  him"!  Could  Maurice  stand  that? 
Wouldn't  what  little  love  he  felt  for  his  old  wife  go  down 
tinder  the  wicked  assault  of  those  "looks"? — unless  he 
had  Jacky!  Jacky  would  "slam  the  door." 

Eleanor  said  things  like  this  many  times  a  day.  Straws ! 
Straws !  And  they  showed  the  way  the  wind  was  blowing. 
Sometimes,  in  the  suffocating  dust  of  fear  that  the  wind 
raised  she  even  forgot  her  purpose  of  making  Maurice 
happy,  in  a  violent  urge  to  make  it  impossible  for  Edith 
Houghton  to  triumph  over  her.  But  the  other  thought — 
the  crazy,  nobler  thought ! — was,  on  the  whole,  dominant : 
i "Maurice  would  be  happy  if  he  had  a  child.  I  couldn't 
i give  him  a  child  of  my  own,  but  I  can  give  him  Jacky." 
I  Yet  once  in  a  while  she  balanced  the  advantages  and  dis- 
advantages of  the  one  way  in  which  Jacky  could  be  given : 
Lily?  Could  Maurice  endure  Lily  ?  She  thought  of  that 
parlor,  of  Lily's  vulgarity,  of  the  raucous  note  in  her  voice 
when  those  flashes  of  anger  pierced  like  claws  through  the 
furry  softness  of  her  good  nature;  she  thought  of  the  reek 
of  scent  on  the  handkerchief.  Could  he  endure  Lily?  Yet, 


330  THE  1  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

she  was  efficient;  she  would  make  him  comfortable.  "I 
never  made  him  comfortable,"  she  thought.  "And  he 
doesn't  love  her;  so  I  wouldn't  so  terribly  mind  her  being 
here — any  more  than  I'd  mind  a  housekeeper.  But  I 
wouldn't  want  her  to  call  him  'Maurice.'  I  think  I'll  put 
that  into  my  letter  to  him.  I'll  say  that  I  will  ask,  as  a 
last  favor,  that  he  will  not  let  her  call  him  'Maurice.'" 

For  by  this  time  she  had  added  another  straw  to  the 
pile  of  rubbish  in  her  mind:  she  would  write  him  a  letter. 
In  it  she  would  tell  him  that  she  was  going  to  ...  die,  so 
that  he  could  marry  Lily  and  have  Jacky !  Then  came  the 
mental  postscript,  which  would  not,  of  course,  be  written; 
she  would  make  it  possible  for  him  to  marry  Lily — and 
impossible  for  him  to  marry  Edith!  And  by  and  by  she 
.got  so  close  to  her  mean  and  noble  purpose — a  gift  in 
one  dead  hand  and  a  sword  in  the  other ! — that  she  began 
to  think  of  ways  and  means.  How  could  she  die?  She 
couldn't  buy  morphine  without  a  prescription,  and  she 
couldn't  possibly  get  a  prescription.  But  there  were 
other  things  that  people  did, — dreadful  things !  She  knew 
she  couldn't  do  anything  "dreadful."  Maurice  had  a 
revolver  in  his  bureau  drawer,  upstairs — but  she  didn't 
know  how  to  make  it  "go  off";  and  if  she  had  known,  she 
couldn't  do  it;  it  would  be  "dreadful."  Well;  a  rope? 
No!  Horrible!  She  had  once  seen  a  picture  .  .  .  she 
shuddered  at  the  memory  of  that  picture.  That  was  im- 
possible !  Sometimes  any  way — every  way ! — seemed  im- 
possible. Once,  wandering  aimlessly  about  the  thawing 
back  yard,  she  stood  for  a  long  time  at  the  iron  gate, 
staring  at  the  glimmer,  a  block  away,  of  the  river — "our 
river,"  Maurice  used  to  call  it.  But  in  town,  "their" 
river — flowing! — flowing!  was  filmed  with  oil,  and  washed 
against  slimy  piles,  and  carried  a  hideous  flotsam  of  human 
rubbish;  once  down  below  the  bridge  she  had  seen  a 
drowned  cat  slopping  back  and  forth  among  orange  skins 
and  straw  bottle  covers.  The  river,  in  town,  was  as 
"dreadful"  as  those  other  impossible  things!  Back  in 
kthe  meadows  it  was  different — brown  and  clear  where 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  33i) 

it  rippled  over  shallows  and  lisped  around  that  strip 
of  clean  sand,  and  darkly  smooth  out  in  the  deep  current; 
— the  deep  current?  Why!  that  was  possible!  Of  course 
there  were  "things"  in  the  water  that  she  might  step  on — 
slimy,  creeping  things! — which  she  was  so  afraid  of.  She 
remembered  how  afraid  she  had  been  that  night  on  the 
mountain,  of  snakes.  But  the  water  was  clean. 

She  must  have  stood  there  a  long  time;  the  maids,  in 
the  basement  laundry,  said  afterward  that  they  saw  her, 
her  white  hands  clutching  the  rusty  bars  of  the  gate, 
looking  down  toward  the  river,  for  nearly  an  hour.  Then 
Bingo  whined,  and  she  went  into  the  house  to  comfort 
him;  and  as  she  stroked  him  gently,  she  said,  "Yes,  .  .  . 
our  river  would  be  possible."  But  she  would  get  so  wet! 
"My  skirts  would  be  wet.  .  .  ." 

So  three  days  went  by  in  profound  preoccupation.  Her 
mind  was  a  battlefield,  over  which,  back  and  forth,  reel- 
ing and  trampling,  Love  and  Jealousy — old  enemies  but 
now  allies! — flung  themselves  against  Reason,  which  had 
no  support  but  Fear.  Each  day  Maurice's  friendly  letters 
arrived;  one  of  them — as  Jealousy  began  to  rout  Reason 
and  Love  to  cast  out  Fear — she  actually  forgot  to  open ! 
Mrs.  Newbolt  called  her  up  on  the  telephone  once,  and 
said,  "Come  'round  to  dinner;  my  new  cook  is  pretty 
poor,  but  she's  better  than  yours." 

Eleanor  said  she  had  a  little  cold.  "Cold?"  said  Mrs. 
Newbolt.  "  My  gracious !  don't  come  near  me!  I  used  to 
tell  your  dear  uncle  I  was  more  afraid  of  a  cold  than  I 
was  of  Satan!  He  said  a  cold  was  Satan;  and  I  said — " 
Eleanor  hung  up  the  receiver. 

So  she  was  alone — and  the  wind  blew,  and  the  straws 
and  leaves  danced  over  that  battlefield  of  her  empty 
mind,  and  she  said: 

"I'll  give  him  Jacky,"  and  then  she  said,  "Our  river." 
And  then  she  said,  "But  I  must  hurry!"  He  had  written 
that  he  might  reach  home  by  the  end  of  the  week.  "He 
might  come  to-night!  I  must  do  it — before  he  comes 

home."    She  said  that  while  the  March  dawn  was  gray 
22 


532  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

against  the  windows  of  her  bedroom,  and  the  house  was 
still.  She  lay  in  bed  until,  at  six,  she  heard  the  creak  of 
the  attic  stairs  and  Mary's  step  as  she  crept  down  to  the 
kitchen,  the  silver  basket  clattering  faintly  on  her  arm. 
Then  she  rose  and  dressed;  once  she  paused  to  look  at 
herself  in  the  glass:  those  gray  hairs!  .  .  .  Edith  had 
called  his  attention  to  them  so  many  years  ago !  It  was  a 
long  time  since  it  had  been  worth  while  to  pull  them  out. 
| .. .-.  All  that  morning  she  moved  about  the  house  like  one 
in  a  dream.  She  was  thinking  what  she  would  say  in  her 
letter  to  him,  and  wondering,  now  and  then,  vaguely, 
what  it  would  be  like,  afterward?  She  ate  no  luncheon, 
though  she  sat  down  at  the  table.  She  just  crumbled 
up  a  piece  of  bread;  then  rose,  and  went  into  the  library 

to  Maurice's  desk She  sat  there  for  a  long  time,  making 

idle  scratches  on  the  blotting  paper;  her  elbow  on  the 
desk,  her  forehead  in  her  hand,  she  sat  and  scrawled  his 
initials — and  hers — and  his.  And  then,  after  about  an 
hour,  she  wrote: 

...  I  want  you  to  have  Jacky.  When  I  am  dead  you  can  get 
him,  because  you  can  many  Lily.  Of  course  I  oughtn't  to  have 
married  you,  but — 

Here  she  paused  for  a  long  time. 

I  loved  you.  I'd  rather  she  didn't  call  you  Maurice.  But  I 
want  you  to  have  Jacky;  so  marry  her,  and  you  will  have  him. 
1  am  not  jealous,  you  see.  You  won't  call  me  jealous  any  more, 
will  you?  And,  besides,  I  love  little  Jacky,  too.  See  that  he  has 
music  lessons. 

Another  pause.  .  .  .  Many  thoughts.  .  .  .Many  straws 
and  dead  leaves.  .  .  .  "Edith  will  never  enter  the  house, 
if  Lily  is  here — with  Jacky.  .  .  .  Oh — I  hate  her." 

You  will  believe  I  love  you,  won't  you,  darling?  I  wish  I 
hadn't  married  you;  I  didn't  mean  to  do  you  any  harm.  I  just 
loved  you,  and  I  thought  I  could  make  you  happy.  I  know  now 
that  I  didn't.  Forgive  me,  darling,  for  marrying  you.  .  .  . 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  333 

Again  a  long  pause.  .  .  . 

I  don't  mind  dying  at  all,  if  I  can  give  you  what  you  want. 
And  I  don't  mind  your  marrying  Lily.  I  am  sure  she  can  make 
good  cake — tell  her  to  try  that  chocolate  cake  you  liked  so  much. 
I  tried  it  twice,  but  it  was  heavy.  I  forgot  the  baking  powder. 
Make  her  call  you  "  Mr.  Curtis."  Oh,  Maurice — you  will  believe 
I  love  you? — even  if  I  am — 

She  put  her  pen  down  and  buried  her  face  in  her  arms 
folded  on  his  desk;  she  couldn't  seem  to  write  that  word 
of  three  letters  which  she  had  supposed  summed  up  the 
tragedy,  begun  on  that  June  day  in  the  field  and  ending, 
she  told  herself,  on  this  March  day,  in  the  same  place. 
So,  by  and  by,  instead  of  writing  "old,"  she  wrote 

"a  poor  housekeeper." 

Then  she  pondered  on  how  she  should  sign  the  letter, 
and  after  a  while  she  wrote: 

"STAR." 

She  looked  at  the  radiant  word,  and  then  kissed  it. 
By  and  by  she  got  up — with  difficulty,  for  she  had  sat 
there  so  long  that  she  was  stiff  in  every  joint — and  going 
to  her  own  desk,  she  hunted  about  in  it  for  that  little 
envelope,  which,  for  nearly  twelve  of  the  fifty  golden  years 
which  were  to  find  them  in  "their  field,"  had  held  the  circle 
of  braided  grass.  When  she  opened  it,  and  slid  the  ring  out 
into  the  palm  of  her  hand  it  crumbled  into  dust.  She 
debated  putting  it  back  into  the  envelope  and  inclosing  it 
in  her  letter  ?  But  a  rush  of  tenderness  for  Maurice  made 
her  say:  "No!  It  might  hurt  him."  So  she  dropped  it 
down  behind  the  logs  in  the  fireplace.  "When  the  fire  is 
lighted  it  will  burn  up."  Lily's  scented  handkerchief  had 
turned  to  ashes  there,  too.  Then  she  folded  the  letter, 
slipped  it  into  an  envelope,  sealed  it,  addressed  it,  and  put 
it  in  her  desk.  "He'll  find  it,"  she  thought,  "afterward." 
Find  it, — and  know  how  much  she  loved  him! — the  words 


334  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

were  like  wine  to  her.  Then  she  looked  at  the  clock  and 
was  startled  to  see  that  it  was  five.  She  must  hurry! 
He  might  come  home  and  stop  her!  .  .  . 

She  was  perfectly  calm;  she  put  on  her  coat  and  hat 
and  opened  the  front  door;  then  saw  the  gleam  of  lights 
on  the  wet  pavement  and  felt  the  March  drizzle  in  her 
face;  she  reflected  that  it  would  be  very  wet  in  the 
meadow,  and  went  back  for  her  rubbers. 

When  the  car  came  banging  cheerfully  along,  she 
boarded  it  and  sat  so  that  she  would  be  able  to  see  Lily's 
house.  "She's  getting  his  supper,"  Eleanor  thought; 
v' '  dear  little  Jacky !  Well,  he  will  be  having  his  supper  with 
Maurice  pretty  soon !  I  wonder  how  she'll  get  along  with 
Mary?  Mary  will  call  her  'Mrs.  Curtis.'  Mary  would 
leave  in  a  minute  if  she  knew  what  kind  of  a  person  '  Mrs. 
Curtis' was!"  She  smiled  at  that;  it  pleased  her.  "But 
she  mustn't  call  him  'Maurice,'"  she  thought;  "I  won't 
permit  that!" 

The  car  stopped,  and  all  the  other  passengers  got  out. " 
Eleanor  vaguely  watched  the  conductor  pull  the  trolley 
pole  round  for  the  return  trip;  then  she  rose  hurriedly. 
As  she  started  along  the  road  toward  the  meadow  she 
thought.  "I  can  walk  into  the  water;  I  never  could  jump 
in!  But  it  will  be  easy  to  wade  in."  That  made  her  think 
of  the  picnic,  and  the  wading,  and  how  Maurice  had  tied 
Edith's  shoestrings;  and  with  that  came  a  surge  of  tri- 
umph. "  When  he  reads  my  letter,  and  knows  how  much 
I  love  him,  he'll  forget  her.  And  when  she  hears  he  has 
married  Lily,  she'll  stop  making  love  to  him  by  getting 
him  to  tie  her  shoestrings!" 

It  was  quite  dark  by  this  time,  and  chilly;  she  had 
meant  to  sit  down  for  a  while,  with  her  back  against  the 
locust  tree,  and  think  how,  at  last,  he  was  going  to  realize 
her  love!  But  when  she  reached  the  bank  of  the  river 
she  stooped  and  felt  the  winter-bleached  grass,  and  found 
it  so  wet  with  the  small,  fine  rain  which  had  begun  to  fall, 
that  she  was  afraid  to  sit  down,  "I'd  add  to  my  cold," 
she  thought.  So  she  stood  there  a  long  time,  looking  at 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  335 

the  river,  leaden  now  in  the  twilight.  "How  it  glittered 
that  day ! "  she  thought.  Suddenly,  on  a  soft  wind  of  mem- 
ory, she  seemed  to  smell  the  warm  fragrance  of  the  clover, 
and  hear  again  her  own  voice,  singing  in  the  sunshine— 

"Through  the  dear  windows  of  the  morning!" 

"I'll  leave  my  coat  on  the  bank,"  she  said;  "but  I'll 
wear  my  hat;  it  will  keep  my  hair  from  getting  messy. 
.  .  .  Oh,  Maurice  mustn't  let  her  call  him  'Maurice'!  I 
wish  I'd  made  that  clearer  in  my  letter.  Why  didn't  I  tell 
him  to  give  her  that  five  cents  ?  .  .  .  I  wonder  how  many 
'minutes'  we  have  had  now?  We  had  had  fifty-four,  that 
Day.  I  wish  I  had  calculated,  and  put  the  number  in  the 
letter.  No,  that  might  have  made  him  feel  badly.  I  don't 
want  to  hurt  him;  I  only  want  him  to  know  that  I  love 
him  enough  to  die  to  make  him  happy.  Oh — will  it  be 
cold?" 

It  was  then  that  she  took,  slowly,  one  step — and  stood 
still.  And  another — and  paused.  Her  heart  began  to  pound 
suffocatingly  in  her  throat,  and  suddenly  she  knew  that 
she  was  afraid !  She  had  not  known  it ;  fear  had  not  en- 
tered into  her  plans ;  just  love — and  Maurice;  just  hate — 
and  Edith!  Nor  had  "Right"  or  "Wrong"  occurred  to 
her.  Now,  old  instincts  rose  up.  People  called  this 
"wicked"?  So,  if  she  was  going  to  do  it,  she  must  do  it 
quickly!  She  mustn't  get  to  thinking  or  she  might  be 
afraid  to  do  it,  because  it  would  be  "wicked."  She  un- 
fastened her  coat,  then  fumbled  with  her  hat,  pinning  it  on 
firmly;  she  was  saying,  aloud:  "Oh — oh — oh — it's 
wicked.  But  I  must.  Oh — my  skirts  will  get  wet.  .  .  . 
'Kiss  thy  perfumed  garments'  .  .  .  No;  I'll  hold  them 
up.  Oh — oh — "  And  as  she  spoke  her  crazy  purpose  drove 
her  forward;  she  held  back  against  it — but,  like  the 
pressure  of  a  hand  upon  her  shoulder,  it  pushed  her  on 
down  the  bank — slowly — slowly — her  heels  digging  into 
the  crumbling  clay,  her  hands  clutching  now  at  a  tuft  of 
grass,  now  at  a  drooping  branch;  she  was  drawing  quick 


336  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

breaths  of  terror,  and  talking,  in  little  gasps,  aloud: 
"He'll  forget  Edith,    He'll  have  Jacky.    He'll  know  how 
much  I  love  him.  ..."    So,  over  the  pebbles,  out  on  to 
the  spit  of  sand;   on — on — until  she  reached  the  river's 
edge.    She  stood  there  for  a  minute,  listening  to  the  lisping 
chatter  of  the  current.    Very  slowly,  she  stepped  in,  and 
was  ankle  deep  in  shallow  water, — then  stopped  short — 
the  water  soaked  through  her  shoes,  and  suddenly  she  felt  t 
it,  like  circling  ice,  around  her  ankles !    Aloud,  she  said, : 
"Maurice, — I  give  you  Jacky.     But  don't  let  Lily  call 
you — "   She  stepped  on,  into  the  stream;  one  step — two — . 
three.     It  was  still  shallow.    "Why  doesn't  it  get  deep?" ,' 
she  said,  angrily;  another  step  and  the  water  was  halfway . 
to  her  knees;  she  felt  the  force  of  the  current  and  swayed  . 
a  little;  still  another  step — above  her  knees  now!  and  the 
rip,  tugging  and  pulling  at  her  floating  skirts.    It  was  at 
the  next  step  that  she  slipped,  staggered,  fell  full  length — 
felt  the  water  gushing  into  the  neck  of  her  dress,  running 
down  her  back,  flowing  between  her  breasts;    felt  her 
sleeves  drenched  against  her  arms;    she  sprang  up,  fell 
again,  her  head  under  water,  her  face  scraping  the  pebbly 
sharpness  of  the  river  bed, — again  got  on  to  her  feet  and 
ran  choking  and  coughing,  stumbling  and  slipping,  back 
to  the  sand-spit,  and  the  shore.    There  she  stood,  soaking 
wet,  gasping.    Her  hat  was  gone,  her  nair  dripping  about 
her  face.    ' '  /  can't, ' '  she  said. 

She  climbed  up  the  bank,  catching  at  the  grass  and 
twigs,  and  feeling  her  tears  running  hot  over  the  icy  wet- 
ness of  her  cheeks.  When  she  reached  the  top  she  picked 
up  her  coat  with  numb,  shaking  hands  and,  shivering 
violently,  put  it  on  with  a  passionate  desire  for  warmth. 

"I  tried;  I  tried,"  she  said;  "but— I  can't!" 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

IT  was  after  ten  o'clock  that  night  when  Eleanor's  icy 
fingers  fumbled  at  Mrs.  Newbolt's  doorbell.  The  ring 
was  not  heard  at  first,  because  her  aunt  and  Edith  Hough- 
ton  and  Johnny  Bennett  were  celebrating  his  departure 
the  next  day  for  South  America,  by  making  a  Welsh  rabbit 
in  a  chafing  dish  before  the  parlor  fire.  Mrs.  Newbolt, 
entering  into  the  occasion  with  voluble  reminiscences,  was 
having  a  very  good  time.  She  liked  Youth,  and  she  liked 
Welsh  rabbits,  and  she  liked  an  audience;  and  she  had  all 
three!  Then  the  doorbell  rang.  And  again. 

"For  Heaven's  sake!"  said  Mrs.  Newbolt;  "at  this 
time  of  night!  Johnny,  the  girls  have  gone  to  bed;  you 
go  and  answer  it,  like  a  good  boy." 

"  Dump  in  some  more  beer,  Edith,"  Johnny  commanded, 
and  went  out  into  the  hall,  whistling.  A  moment  later 
the  other  two  heard  his  startled  voice,  "Why,  come 
right  in!"  There  was  no  reply,  just  shuffling  steps;  then 
Eleanor,  silent,  without  any  hat,  her  hair  plastered  down 
her  ghastly  cheeks,  her  face  bruised  and  soiled  with  sand, 
stood  in  the  doorway,  the  astonished  John  Bennett  behind 
her.  Everybody  spoke  at  once: 

"Eleanor!  What  has  happened?" 

"Eleanor!  Where  is  your  hat ?" 

"Good  gracious!  Eleanor — " 

She  was  perfectly  still.  Just  looking  at  them,  during 
that  blank  moment  before  everything  became  a  confusion 
of  jostling  assistance.  Edith  rushed  to  help  her  off  with 
her  coat.  Johnny  said,  "Mrs.  Newbolt,  where  can  I  get 
some  whisky?"  Mrs.  Newbolt  felt  the  soaking  skirt,  and 
tried  to  unfasten  the  belt  so  that  the  wet  mass  might  fall 
to  the  floor. 


338  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

Eleanor  was  rigid.   "Get  a  doctor!"  Edith  commanded. 

Johnny  ran  to  the  telephone. 

"No,"  Eleanor  whispered. 

But  nobody  paid  any  attention  to  her.  Johnny,  at  the 
telephone,  was  telling  Mrs.  Newbolt's  doctor  to  hurry! 
Mrs.  Newbolt  herself  had  run,  wheezing,  to  open  the  spare- 
room  bed  and  get  out  extra  blankets,  and  fill  hot-water 
bottles;  then,  somehow  or  other,  she  and  Edith  got 
Eleanor  upstairs,  undressed  her,  put  her  into  the  big  four- 
poster,  and  held  a  tumbler  of  hot  whisky  and  water  to 
her  lips.  By  the  time  Doctor  James  arrived  she  had  begun 
to  shiver  violently;  but  she  was  still  silent.  The  trolley 
ride  into  town,  with  staring  passengers  and  a  conductor 
who  thought  she  had  been  drinking,  and  tried  to  be 
jocose,  had  chilled  her  to  the  bone,  and  the  gradual  dulling 
of  thought  had  left  only  one  thing  clear  to  her:  She 
mustn't  go  home,  because  Maurice  might  possibly  be 
there!  And  if  he  was,  then  he  would  know!  So  she  must 
go — somewhere.  She  went  first  to  Mrs.  O'Brien's,  climb- 
ing the  three  long  flights  of  stairs  and  feeling  her  way  along 
dark  entries  to  the  old  woman's  door.  She  stood  there 
shuddering  and  knocking;  a  single  gas  jet,  wavering  in  the 
draughty  entry,  made  her  shadow  lurch  on  the  cracked 
plaster  of  the  wall ;  it  occurred  to  her  that  she  would  like 
to  put  her  frozen  hands  around  the  little  flame  to  warm 
them.  Then  she  knocked  again.  There  was  no  answer, 
so,  shaking  from  head  to  foot,  she  felt  her  way  downstairs 
again  to  the  street,  where  the  reflection  of  an  occasional 
gas  lamp  gleamed  and  flickered  on  the  wet  asphalt.  "I'll 
go  to  Auntie's,"  she  thought. 

She  had  just  one  purpose — to  get  warm!  But  she  was 
so  dazed  that  she  could  never  remember  how  she  reached 
Mrs.  Newbolt's;  probably  she  walked,  for  there  were 
no  cabs  in  that  part  of  town  and  no  car  line  passed 
Mrs.  Newbolt's  door.  The  time  after  she  left  Mrs. 
O'Brien's  was  a  blank.  Even  when  she  had  swallowed  the 
hot  whisky,  and  began  to  feel  warmer,  she  was  still  men- 
tally benumbed,  and  couldn't  remember  what  she  had 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  339 

done.  She  did  not  notice  Johnny  Bennett ;  she  saw  Edith, 
but  did  not,  apparently,  understand  that  she  was  staying 
in  the  house.  When  the  doctor  came  she  was  as  silent  to 
him  as  to  everybody  else. 

He  asked  no  questions.  "Keep  her  warm,"  he  said, 
"and  don't  talk  to  her." 

Mrs.  Newbolt,  going  to  the  door  with  him,  palpitating 
with  fright,  said,  "We  don't  know  a  thing  more  about 
what's  happened  than  you  do !  She  just  appeared,  drippin' . 
wet!" 

"She  has  evidently  fallen  into  some  water,"  he  said; 
"but  I  wouldn't  ask  her  about  it,  yet.  Of  course  we  don't 
know  what  the  result  will  be,  Mrs.  Newbolt.  I  can't 
help  Baying  I'm  anxious.  Mr.  Curtis  had  better  be  sent 
for.  Telegraph  him  in  the  morning."  He  went  off,  think- 
ing to  himself, ' '  She  must  have  gone  into  the  country  to  do 
it.  If  she'd  tried  the  river,  here,  and  scrambled  out,  she 
wouldn't  have  been  so  frightfully  chilled.  I  wonder  what's 
up?" 

Everybody  wondered  what  was  up,  but  Eleanor  did 
not  enlighten  them;  so  the  three  interrupted  revelers 
could  do  nothing  but  think.  Johnny's  thoughts,  as  he  sat 
down  in  the  parlor  among  the  Welsh-rabbit  plates,  keeping 
the  fire  up,  and  waiting  in  case  he  might  be  needed,  were 
even  briefer  than  the  doctor's :  "Tried  to  commit  suicide. " 

Edith,  standing  in  the  upper  hall,  listening  to  Mrs. 
Newbolt  at  Eleanor's  bedside,  exclaiming,  and  repeating 
her  dear  mother's  ideas  about  catching  cold,  and  offering 
more  hot-water  bottles,  had  her  thoughts:  "I  won't  go 
into  the  room — she  would  hate  to  see  me!  The  doctor 
said  she  had  fallen  into  some  water.  Did  she — do  it  on 
purpose?  Oh,  was  it  my  fault?"  Edith's  heart  pounded 
with  terror:  "Was  it  what  I  said  to  her  in  the  garden 
that  made  her  do  it?*' 

Mrs.  Newbolt,  in  a  blue-flannel  dressing  gown,  and  in 
and  out  of  the  spare  room  with  sibilant  whispers  of  anxiety, 
had,  for  once,  more  thoughts  than  words;  her  words  were 
only,  "I've  always  expected  it!"  But  her  thoughts  would 


340  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

have  filled  volumes!  Mrs.  Newbolt  had  put  her  hair  in 
order  for  the  night,  and  now  her  crimping  pins  made  the 
shadow  of  her  head,  bobbing  on  the  ceiling,  look  like  a 
gigantic  spider. 

Eleanor  had  just  one  hazy  thought:  "I  tried^  .  .  I 
tried — and  I  failed." 

Other  people,  however,  didn't  feel  so  sure  that  she  had 
failed.  She  "looks  like  death,"  Mrs.  Newbolt  told  Edith 
the  next  morning.  "We've  got  to  find  Maurice!  Edith, 
why  do  you  suppose  she — did  it?" 

"Oh,  but  she  didn't!"  Edith  said.  "What  sense  would 
there  be — " 

"Don't  talk  about  'sense'!  Eleanor  never  had  any. 
I've  telegraphed  your  mother  to  come.  I  wonder  how 
Bingo  is?  She  understands  her.  The  ashman  has  broken 
my  new  ash  barrel;  I  don't  know  what  this  country  is 
comin'  to!" 

Then  she  went  upstairs  to  try  to  understand  Eleanor 
herself.  "Eleanor,  what  happened?" 

"Nothing.    I'm  going  home  this  afternoon." 

"Indeed  you  are  not !  You're  not  goin'  out  of  this  house 
till  Maurice  comes  and  gets  you!  What  happened?"  she 
demanded  again. 

"I  fell.    Into  some  water."' 

"How  could  you  'fall'?   And  what  'water'?" 

"I  had  gone  out  to  the  river — up  in  Medfield  To — 
take  a  walk;  and  I  ...  slipped.  ..." 

"Now,  Eleanor,  look  here;  if  I  have  a  virtue,  it's 
candor,  and  I'll  tell  you  why;  it  saves  time.  That's  what 
my  dear  father  used  to  say :  'Lyin' wastes  time.'  I  know 
what  you  tried  to  do;  and  it  was  very  wicked." 

"But  I  didn't  do  it!" 

"You  tried  to.  If  you  and  Maurice  have  quarreled, 
I'll  stand  by  you" 

Eleanor  covered  her  face  with  her  hands — and  Mrs. 
Newbolt  burst  out, ' '  He's  treated  you  badly !  You  needn't 
try  to  deceive  me, — he's  been  flirtin*  with  some  woman?" 
Her  pale,  prominent  eyes  snapped  with  anger. 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  34i 

"Oh,  Auntie,  don't!  He  hasn't!  Only,  I — wanted  to 
make  him  happier;  and  so  I — "  She  broke  into  furious 
crying.  Despairing  crying. 

Instantly  Mrs.  Newbolt  was  all  frightened  solicitude. 
"There!  Don't  cry!  Have  a  hot-water  bag.  They  say 
there's  a  new  kind  on  the  market.  I  must  get  a  new  pair 
of  rubbers.  Your  face  is  awfully  bruised.  He's  puffectly 
happy!  He  worships  the  ground  you  walk  on!  Eleanor, 
don't  cry.  How's  your  cold?  The  ashman — " 

Eleanor,  gasping,  said  her  cold  was  better,  and  repeated 
her  determination  of  going  home. 

It  was  the  doctor — dropping  in,  he  said,  to  make  sure 
Mrs.  Curtis  was  none  the  worse  for  her  "accident" — who 
put  a  stop  to  that. 

"I  slipped  and  fell,"  Eleanor  told  him;  she  was  very 
hoarse. 

He  said  yes,  he  understood.  "But  you  got  badly  chilled, 
and  you  had  a  cold  to  start  with.  So  you  must  lie  low  for 
two  or  three  days.  When  will  Mr.  Curtis  be  back?" 

Eleanor  said  she  didn't  know;  all  she  knew  was  she 
didn't  want  him  sent  for.  She  was  "all  right." 

But  of  course  he  had  been  sent  for!  "I  don't  know  that 
it  was  really  necessary,"  Mrs.  Newbolt  told  Mrs.  Hough- 
ton,  who  appeared  late  in  the  afternoon;  "but  I  wasn't 
goin'  to  take  the  responsibility — " 

"Of  course  not!"  Mrs.  Houghton  said.  "Mr.  Weston 
has  telegraphed  him,  too,  I  hope?"  Then,  before  taking 
her  things  off,  she  went  upstairs  to  Eleanor.  "Well!" 
she  said,  "I  hear  you  had  an  accident?  Sensible  girl,  to 
stay  in  bed ! "  She  took  Eleanor's  hand,  and  its  hot  tremor 
made  her  look  keenly  at  the  haggard  face  on  the  pillow. 

"Oh,"  Eleanor  said,  with  a  gasp  of  relief,  "I'm  so  glad 
you're  here!  There  are  some  things  I  want  attended  to. 
I  owe — I  mean,  somebody  paid  my  car  fare.  And  I  must 
send  it  to  her!  And  then  I  want  something  from  my  desk; 
but  I  can't  have  Bridget  get  it,  and  I  don't  want  to  ask 
Auntie  to.  It's — it's  a  letter  to  Maurice.  I  wanted  to  tell 
him  something.  .  .  .  But  I've  changed  my  mind.  I  don't 


342  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

want  him  to  see  it.  He  mustn't  see  it !  Oh,  Mrs.  Hough- 
ton,  would  you  get  it  for  me?  I'd  be  so  grateful! .  .  .  And 
then, — oh,  that  five  cents  1  1  don't  know  how  I'm  going 
to  send  it  to  her — " 

"Tell  me  who  it  is,  and  111  get  it  to  her;  and  I'll  get 
the  letter,"  Mary  Houghton  told  her;  and  went  on  with 
the  usual  sick-room  encouragement:  "The  doctor  says 
you  are  better.  But  you  must  hurry  and  get  well,  so  as  to 
help  Maurice  with  the  little  boy!" 

Her  words  were  like  a  push  against  some  tottering 
barrier. 

"I  tried  to  help  him;  I  tried  to  get  Jacky!  I  went  to 
the  woman's,  but  she  wouldn't  give  him  to  me !  I  tried — 
so  hard.  But  she  wouldn't !  She  paid  my  car  fare — " 

Mrs.  Houghton  bent  over  and  kissed  her:  "Tell  me 
about  it,  dear;  perhaps  I  can  help." 

"There  is  no  help!  .  ,  .  She  won't  give  him  up.  She 
insisted  on  coming  home  with  me,  and  she  paid  my  car 
fare!  Then  I  thought,  if — I  were  not  alive,  Maurice 
could  get  him,  because  he  could  marry  her.  .  .  .  ' 

Instantly,  with  a  thrill  of  horror  and  admiration,  Mrs. 
Houghton  understood  the  "accident"!  "Eleanor!  What 
a  mad,  mad  thought!  As  if  you  could  help  Maurice  by 
giving  him  a  great  grief !  Oh,  I  do  thank  God  he  has  been 
spared  anything  so  terrible!" 

"But,"  Eleanor  said,  excitedly,  "if  I  were  dead,  it  would 
be  his  duty  to  marry  her,  wouldn't  it?  Jacky  is  his  child! 
Oughtn't  he  to  marry  Jacky 's  mother?  Oh,  Mrs.  Hough- 
ton,  I  owe  her  five  cents — " 

The  older  woman  was  trembling,  but  she  spoke  calmly : 
"Eleanor,  dear,  you  must  live  for  Maurice,  not — die  for 
him." 

"Promise  me,"  said  Eleanor,  "you  won't  tell  him?" 

"Of  course  I  won't!"  said  Mrs.  Houghton,  with  elabo- 
rate cheerfulness.  She  kissed  her,  and  went  downstairs, 
feeling  very  queer  in  her  knees.  She  paused  at  the  parlor 
door  to  say  to  Mrs.  Newbolt  and  Edith  that  she  was  going 
out  to  do  an  errand  for  Eleanor;  "I  hope  Maurice  will 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  343 

get  back  soon,"  she  said.  "I  don't  like  Eleanor's  looks." 
Then  she  went  to  get  that  letter  which  Maurice  "must  not 
see."  As  she  walked  along  the  street  she  was  still  tingling 
with  the  shock  of  having  her  own  theories  brought  home 
to  her.  "Thank  God,"  Mary  Houghton  said,. J.' that 
nothing  happened ! ' ' 

The  maid  who  opened  the  door  at  Maurice's  house  was 
evidently  excited,  but  not  about  her  mistress.  "Oh,  Mrs. 
Houghton!"  she  said,  "we  done  our  best,  but  he  wouldn't 
take  a  bite! — and  I  declare  I  don't  know  what  Mrs. Curtis 
will  say.  He  just  wouldn't  eat,  and  this  morning  he  up 
and  died — and  me  offering  him  a  chop!"  Bridget  wept 
with  real  distress.  "Mrs.  Houghton,  please  tell  her  we 
done  our  best;  he  just  smelled  his  chop — and  died.  You 
see,  he  hasn't  eat  a  thing,  without  she  gave  it  to  him,  for — 
oh,  more  'n  a  month!" 

Mary  Houghton  went  into  the  library,  where  the  fire 
was  out,  and  the  dust  on  tables  and  chairs  bore  witness 
to  the  fact  that  Bridget  had  devoted  herself  to  Bingo ;  the 
room  was  gloomy,  and  smelled  of  soot.  Little  Bingo  lay, 
stiff  and  chill,  on  the  sofa ;  on  a  plate  beside  him  was  a  chop 
rimmed  in  cold  grease, — poor  little,  loving,  jealous,  old 
Bingo!  "I  hope  it  won't  upset  Mrs.  Curtis,"  Mrs. 
Houghton  told  the  maid;  then  gave  directions  about  the 
stark  little  body.  She  found  the  letter  in  Eleanor's  desk, 
and  went  back  to  Mrs.  Newbolt's.  "Love,"  she  thought, 
"is  as  strong  as  death;  stronger!  Bingo — and  Eleanor." 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

MAURICE,  followed  by  telegrams  that  never  quite 
overtook  him,  did,  some  forty-eight  hours  later,  get 
the  news  that  Eleanor  had  "had  an  accident,"  and  was  at 
Mrs.  Newbolt's,  who  thought  he  had  "better  return  im- 
mediately." His  business  was  not  quite  finished,  but  it 
did  not  need  Mr.  Weston's  laconic  wire,  "Drop  Greenleaf 
matters  and  come  back,"  to  start  him  on  the  next  train 
for  Mercer.  He  had  been  away  nearly  two  weeks — two 
terrible  weeks,  of  facing  himself;  two  weeks  of  rebellion, 
and  submission;  of  tumultuous  despair  and  quiet  accept- 
ance. He  had  looked  faithfully — and  very  shrewdly — 
into  the  "Greenleaf  matters";  he  had  turned  one  or  two 
sharp  corners,  with  entirely  honest  cleverness,  and  he  was 
taking  back  to  Mercer  some  concessions  which  old  Weston 
had  slipped  up  on !  Yes,  he  had  done  a  darned  good  job, 
he  told  himself,  lounging  in  the  smoking  compartment  of 
one  parlor  car  or  another,  or  strolling  up  and  down  station 
platforms  for  a  breath  of  air.  And  all  the  while  that  he 
was  on  the  Greenleaf  job — in  Pullmans,  sitting  in  hotel 
lobbies  writing  letters,  looking  through  title  and  probate 
records — his  own  affairs  raced  and  raged  in  his  thoughts; 
they  were  summed  up  in  one  word:  "Edith."  He  could 
not  get  away  from  Edith !  He  tripped  a  Greenleaf  trustee 
into  an  admission  (and  he  thought,  "so  long  as  she  never 
suspects  that  I  love  her,  there's  no  harm  in  going  along  as 
we  always  have  ").  Then  he  conceded  a  point  to  the  Green- 
leaf  interests  (and  said  to  himself,  "her  hair  on  her  shoul- 
ders that  day  on  the  lawn  was  like  a  nimbus  around  the 
head  of  a  saint.  How  she'd  hate  that  word '  saint1 ! ") .  His 
chuckle  made  one  of  the  Greenleaf  heirs  think  that  Wes- 
ton's representative  was  a  good  sort; — "pleasant  fellow  I" 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  34S 

But  Maurice,  looking  "pleasant,"  was  thinking:  "I'd 
about  sell  my  soul  to  kiss  her  hair.  .  .  .  Oh,  I  must  stop 
this  kind  of  thing!  I  swear  it's  worse  than  the  Lily  and 
Jacky  business.  ..."  Then  he  signed  a  deed,  and  the 
Greenleaf  people  felt  they  had  made  a  good  thing  of  it — 
but  Maurice's  telegram  that  the  deed  was  signed,  caused 
rejoicing  in  the  Weston  office !  "Curtis  got  ahead  of  'em ! " 
said  Mr.  Weston.  While  he  was  writing  that  triumphant 
telegram  Maurice  was  wondering:  "Was  John  Bennett  a 
complete  idiot?  ...  If  things  had  been  different  would 
Edith  have  .  .  .  cared?"  For  himself,  he,  personally, 
didn't  care ' '  a  damn,"  whether  Weston  got  ahead  of  Green- 
leaf  or  Greenleaf  beat  Weston.  His  own  affairs  engrossed 
him:  "my  job,"  he  was  telling  himself,  "is  to  see  that 
Eleanor  doesn't  suffer  any  more,  poor  girl!  And  Edith 
shall  never  know.  And  I'll  make  a  decent  man  of  Jacky — 
not  a  fool,  like  his  father."  So  he  wrote  his  victorious 
dispatch,  and  the  Weston  office  congratulated  itself. 

Maurice  had  been  very  grateful  for  his  fortnight  of 
absence  from  everybody,  except  the  Greenleaf  heirs ;  grate- 
ful for  a  solitude  of  trains  and  lawyers'  offices.  Because, 
in  solitude,  he  could,  with  entirely  hopeless  courage,  face 
the  future.  He  was  facing  it  unswervingly  the  day  he 
reached  Chicago,  where  he  was  to  get  some  final  signa- 
tures; he  came  into  the  warm  lobby  of  the  hotel,  glad  to 
escape  the  rampaging  lake  wind,  and  while  he  was  regis- 
tering the  hotel  clerk  produced  the  telegrams  which  had 
been  held  for  him.  The  first,  from  Mr.  Weston,  "Drop 
Greenleaf,"  bewildered  him  until  he  read  the  other, 
"Eleanor  has  had  an  accident."  Then  he  ran  his  pen 
through  his  name,  asked  for  a  time-table,  and  sent  a 
peremptory  wire  to  Mrs.  Newbolt  saying  that  he  was  on 
his  way  home,  and  asking  that  full  particulars  be  tele- 
graphed to  him  at  a  certain  point  on  his  journey.  "Let 
me  know  just  what  happened,  and  how  she  is,"  he  tele- 
graphed. "It  must  be  serious,"  he  thought,  "to  send  for 
me!" 

It  was  hardly  an  hour  before  he  was  on  a  train  for 


346  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

another  day  of  travel,  during  which  he  experienced  the 
irritation  common  to  all  of  us  when  we  receive  an  alarming 
dispatch,  devoid  of  details.  "Economizing  on  ten  cents! 
What  kind  of  an  'accident'?  How  serious  is  it?  When 
was  it  ?  Why  didn't  they  let  me  know  before  ? "  and  so  on ; 
all  the  futile,  anxious,  angry  questions  which  a  man  asks 
himself  under  such  circumstances.  But  suddenly,  while 
he  was  asking  these  questions,  another  question  whispered 
in  his  mind;  a  question  to  which  he  would  not  listen,  and 
which  he  refused  to  answer;  but  again  and  again,  over  and 
over,  it  repeated  itself,  coming,  it  seemed,  on  the  rhyth- 
mical roll  of  the  wheels — the  wheels  which  were  taking 
him  back  to  Eleanor!  "If — if — if — "  the  wheels  ham- 
mered out;  "if  anything  happens  to  Eleanor — "?  He 
never  finished  that  sentence,  but  the  beginning  of  it  actu- 
ally frightened  him.  "Am  I  as  low  as  this ? "  he  said,  fran- 
tically, "speculating  on  the  possibility  of  anything  hap- 
pening to  her?"  But  he  was  not  so  low  as  that — he  only 
heard  the  jar  of  the  wheels:  "If — if — if — if — " 

When  he  reached  the  station  to  which  he  had  told  Mrs. 
Newbolt  to  reply,  he  rushed  out  of  the  car  into  the  tele- 
graph office,  and  clutched  at  the  message  before  the 
operator  could  put  it  into  its  flimsy  brown  envelope ;  as  he 
read  it  he  said  under  his  breath,  "Thank  God!"  It  was 
from  Mary  Houghton: 

Accident  slight.  Slipped  into  water.  All  right  now  except 
bad  cold. 

Maurice's  hand  shook  as  he  folded  the  message  and 
stuffed  it  into  his  pocket.  He  had  the  sense  of  having 
escaped  from  a  terror — the  terror  of  intolerable  remorse. 
For  if  she  had  not  been  "all  right,"  if,  instead  of  just  "a 
bad  cold,"  the  dispatch  had  said  "something  had  hap- 
pened"!— then,  for  all  the  rest  of  his  life  he  would  have 
had  to  remember  how  the  wheels  had  beaten  out  that 
terrible  refrain:  "If— if— if— M 

So  he  said.  "Thank  God." 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  347 

All  that  day,  while  Maurice  was  hurrying  back  to 
Mercer,  Eleanor  lay  very  still,  and  when  Mrs.  Newbolt 
or  Mrs.  Houghton  came  into  the  room  she  closed  her  eyes 
and  pretended  to  be  asleep.  Edith  did  not  come  into  the 
room ;  so,  in  a  hazy  way,  Eleanor  took  it  for  granted  that 
she  had  left  the  house.  "I  should  think  she  would!" 
Eleanor  thought;  "she  could  hardly  have  the  face  to 
stay  in  the  same  house  with  me. "  But  she  did  not 
think  much  about  Edith;  she  was  absorbed  in  deciding 
what  she  should  say  to  Maurice.  Should  she  tell  him  the 
truth? — or  some  silly  story  of  a  walk  to  their  meadow? 
The  two  alternatives  flew  back  and  forth  in  her  mind  like 
shuttlecocks.  There  was  one  thing  she  felt  sure  of:  that 
letter — which  Mrs.  Houghton  had  brought  from  her  desk, 
which  Maurice  was  to  have  read  when  she  had  done  what 
she  set  out  to  do,  but  which  now  she  kept  clutched  in  her 
hand,  or  hidden  under  her  pillow — Maurice  must  not  see 
that  letter!  If  he  read  it,  now,  while  she  was  (she  told  her- 
self) still  half  sick  from  those  drenched  hours  of  the  trolley 
ride  and  the  dark  wanderings  from  Mrs.  O'Brien's  to  Mrs. 
Newbolt's,  the  whole  thing  would  seem  simply  ridiculous. 
Some  time,  he  must  know  that  she  loved  him  enough  to 
buy  Jacky  for  him,  by  dying — or  trying  to  die !  She  would 
tell  him,  some  time;  because  her  purpose  (even  if  it  had 
failed)  would  measure  the  heights  and  depths  of  her  love 
as  nothing  else  could;  but  he  must  not  know  it  now,  be- 
cause she  hadn't  carried  it  out.  That  first  night,  when  she 
had  found  herself  safe  and  warm  (oh,  warm!  She  had 
thought  she  never  would  be  warm  any  more !) — when  she 
had  found  herself  in  Mrs.  Newbolt's  spare  room  in  the 
four-poster  with  its  chintz  hangings  and  its  great  soft  pil- 
lows, she  had  been  glad  she  had  not  carried  it  out.  Glad 
not  to  be  dead.  As  she  lay  there,  shivering  slowly  into 
delicious  comfort,  and  fending  off  Mrs.  Newbolt's  dis- 
tracted questions,  she  had  had  occasional  moments  of  a 
sense  of  danger  escaped;  perhaps  it  would  have  been  wrong 
to — to  lie  down  there  in  the  river?  People  call  it  wicked. 

Mrs.  Newbolt,  for  a  single  suspicious  instant  ("She  forgot 
23 


348  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAiME 

it  right  off,"  Eleanor  said;  "she  just  thought  we'd  quar- 
reled!"); but  Mrs.  Newbolt  had  said  it  was  "wicked." 
"But  I  didn't  do  it!"  Eleanor  told  herself  in  a  rush  of 
gratitude.  She  hadn't  been  "wicked"!  Instead,  she  was 
in  Mrs.  Newbolt's  spare  room,  looking  dreamily  at  the 
old  French  clock  on  the  mantelpiece,  whose  tarnished  gilt 
face  glimmered  between  two  slender  black-marble  columns; 
sometimes  she  counted  the  tick-tock  of  the  slowly  swinging 
pendulum;  sometimes,  toward  dawn,  she  watched  the 
foggy  yellow  daylight  peer  between  the  red  rep  curtains; 
but  counting,  and  looking,  and  drowsing,  she  was  glad  to 
be  alive.  It  was  not  until  the  next  afternoon  that  she 
began  to  be  faintly  mortified  at  being  alive.  It  was  then 
that  she  had  felt  that  she  must  get  that  letter — Maurice 
mustn't  see  it!  Little  by  little,  humiliation  at  her 
failure  to  be  heroic,  grew  acute.  Maurice  wouldn't  know 
that  she  loved  him  enough  to  give  him  Jacky ;  he  would 
just  know  that  she  was  silly.  She  had  got  wet ;  and  had  a 
cold  in  her  head.  Snuffles — not  Death.  He  might — laugh! 
...  It  was  then  that  she  implored  Mrs.  Houghton  to 
get  the  letter  out  of  her  desk. 

Yet  when  it  was  given  to  her  she  held  it  in  her  hand 
under  the  bedclothes,  saying  to  herself  that  she  would  not 
destroy  it,  yet,  because,  even  though  she  had  failed,  there 
might  come  a  time  when  it  would  prove  to  Maurice  how 
much  she  loved  him.  She  was  so  absorbed  in  this  thought 
that  she  did  not  grieve  much  for  Bingo.  "Poor  little 
Bingo,"  she  said,  vaguely,  when  Mrs.  Houghton  told  her 
lhat  the  little  dog  was  dead;  "he  was  so  jealous."  Now,; 
with  Maurice  coming  nearer  every  hour,  she  could  not 
think  of  Bingo;  she  was  face,  to  face  with  a  decision! 
What  should  she  tell  him  about  the  "accident"? 

It  was  in  the  afternoon  of  the  day  that  Maurice  was  to 
arrive, — he  had  telegraphed  that  he  would  reach  Mercer 
in  the  evening; — that  she  had  a  sudden  panic  about  Edith. 
"She  was  here  that  night  and  saw  me.  I  know  she  laughed 
at  me  because  I  hadn't  any  hat  on !  She  may — suspect  ?  If 
she  does,  she'll  tell  him!  "What  shall  I  do  to  stop  her?" 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  349 

She  couldn't  think  of  any  way  to  stop  her!  She  couldn't 
hold  her  thoughts  steady  enough  to  reach  a  decision. 
First  would  come  gladness  of  her  own  comfort  and  safety, 
and  the  warm,  warm  bed;  then  shame,  that  she  had 
faltered  and  run  away  from  a  chance  to  do  a  great  thing 
for  Maurice;  then  terror  that  Edith  would  make  her 
ridiculous  to  Maurice.  Then  all  these  thoughts  would 
whirl  about,  run  backward:  First,  terror  of  Edith!  then 
shame!  then  comfort!  Suddenly  the  terror  thought  held 
fast  with  a  question.  "Suppose  I  make  her  promise  not 
to  tell  Maurice  anything?  I  think  she  would  keep  a 
promise.  ..."  It  would  be  dreadful  to  ask  the  favor  of 
secrecy  of  Edith — just  as  she  had  asked  the  same  sort  of 
favor  of  Lily — but  to  seem  silly  to  Maurice  would  be 
more  dreadful  than  to  ask  a  favor !  She  held  to  this  purpose 
of  humiliating  self -protection,  long  enough  to  ask  Mrs. 
Houghton  when  Edith  was  coming  down  from  Green  Hill. 

"Why,  she's  here,  now,  in  the  house!"  Edith's  mother 
said. 

"Here?"  Eleanor  said,  despairingly.  If  Edith  was  here, 
then  Maurice,  when  he  came,  would  see  her  and  she  would 
tell  him!  "She  would  make  a  funny  story  of  it,"  Eleanor 
thought;  "I  know  her!  She  would  make  him  laugh.  I 
can't  bear  it!  ...  I  would  like  to  speak  to  Edith,"  she 
told  Mrs.  Houghton,  faintly. 

Edith,  summoned  by  her  mother,  stood  for  a  rigid 
moment  outside  Eleanor's  door,  trying  to  get  herself  in 
hand.  In  these  anxious  days,  Edith's  youth  had  been 
threatened  by  assailing  waves  of  a  remorse  that  at  times 
would  have  engulfed  it  altogether,  but  for  that  unflinching 
reasonableness  which  made  her  the  girl  she  was.  "It 
may  be,"  Edith  had  said  to  herself ;  " it  may  be  that  what 
I  said  to  her  in  the  garden  made  her  so  angry  that  she 
tried  to  kill  herself;  but  why  should  it  have  made  her 
angry?  I  didn't  injure  her.  Besides,  she  dragged  it  out  of 
me!  I  couldn't  lie.  She  said,  'You  love  him.'  I  would  not 
lie,  and  say  I  didn't!  But  what  harm  did  it  do  her?" 
So  she  reasoned ;  but  reason  did  not  keep  her  from  suffer- 


350  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

ing.  "Did  I  drive  her  to  it?"  Edith  said,  over  and  over. 
So  when  her  mother  told  her  Eleanor  wanted  to  speak  to 
her,  she  grew  a  little  pale.  When  she  entered  Eleanor's 
room  her  heart  was  beating  so  hard  she  felt  smothered,  but 
she  was  perfectly  matter  of  fact.  "Anything  I  can  do  for 
you,  Eleanor?"  she  said.  She  stood  at  the  foot  of  the  bed, 
holding  on  to  the  carved  bed  post. 

Eleanor  looked  at  her  for  a  silent  moment,  then  gathered 
herself  together.  "Edith,"  she  said  (she  was  very  hoarse 
and  spoke  with  difficulty),  "I  don't  want  to  bother  Mau- 
rice about — about  my  accident.  So  I  am  going  to  ask  you, 
please,  not  to  refer  to  it  to  him.  Not  to  tell  him  anything 
about  it.  Anything.  Promise  me." 

"Of  course  I  won't!"  Edith  said.  As  she  spoke  she 
forgot  herself  in  pity  for  the  scared,  haggard  face.  ("Oh, 
was  it  my  fault?"  she  thought,  with  a  real  pang.)  And 
before  she  knew  it  her  coldness  was  all  gone  and  she  was 
at  Eleanor's  side;  she  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  the  bed 
and  caught  her  hand  impulsively.  "Eleanor,"  she  said, 
"I've  been  awfully  unhappy,  for  fear  anything  I  said — 
that  morning — troubled  you?  Of  course  there  was  no 
sense  in  talking  that  way,  for  either  of  us.  So  please  for- 
give me!  Was  it  what  I  said,  that  made  you — that  both- 
ered you,  I  mean?  I'm  so  unhappy,"  Edith  said,  and 
caught  her  lip  between  her  teeth  to  keep  it  steady;  her 
eyes  were  bright  with  tears.  "Eleanor,  truly  I  am  nothing 
to — to  anybody.  Nobody  cares  a  copper  for  me !  Do  be 
kind  to  me.  Oh — I've  been  awfully  unhappy;  and  I'm  so 
glad  you're  better." 

Instantly  the  smoldering  fire  broke  into  flame:  "I'm 
not  better,"  Eleanor  said,  "and  you  wouldn't  be  glad  if  I 
were." 

It  was  as  if  she  struck  her  hand  upon  those  generous 
young  lips.  Edith  sprang  to  her  feet.  "Eleanor!" 

Eleanor  sat  up  in  bed,  her  hands  behind  her,  propping 
her  up;  her  cheeks  were  dully  red,  her  eyes  glowing. 
"All  this  talk  about  making  me  unhappy  means  nothing 
at  all.  You  have  always  made  me  unhappy.  And  as  for 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  35i 

anybody's  caring  for  you — they  don't;  you  are  quite  right 
about  that.  Quite  right !  And  I  want  to  tell  you  something 
else:  If  anything  happens  to  me,  I  want  Maurice  to  marry 
again.  But  he  won't  marry  you." 

"Eleanor,"  Edith  said,  "you  wouldn't  say  such  a  thing, 
or  think  such  a  thing,  if  you  weren't  sick.  I'm  sorry  I 
came  in.  I'll  go  right  away,  and — " 

"No,"  she  said;  "don't  go  away," — her  arms  had  begun 
to  tremble  with  strain  of  supporting  her,  she  spoke  in 
whispered  gasps:  "I  am  going  to  speak,"  she  said;  "I 
prefer  to  speak.  I  want  you  to  know  that  if  I  die — " 

"You  are  not  going  to  die!  You  are  going  to  get  well." 

"Will  you  please  not  keep  interrupting?  It  is  so  hard 
for  me  to  get  my  breath.  I  want  you  to  know  that  he  will 
marry — that  Dale  woman.  Because  it  is  right  that  he 
should.  Because  of  the  little  boy.  His  little  boy." 

Edith  was  dumb. 

"So  you  see,  he  can't  marry  you,"  Eleanor  said,  and  fell 
back  on  her  pillows,  her  eyes  half  closed. 

There  was  a  long  silence,  just  the  ticking  of  the  Empire 
clock  and  the  faint  snapping  of  the  fire.  Edith  felt  as 
if  some  iron  hand  had  gripped  her  throat.  For  a  moment 
it  was  impossible  for  her  to  speak;  then  the  words  came 
quietly:  "Eleanor,  I'm  glad  you  told  me  this.  You 
are  going  to  get  well,  and  I'm  glad,  glad  that  you  are! 
But  I  must  tell  you:  If  anything  had  happened  to  you, 
I  would  have  moved  heaven  and  earth  to  have  kept 
Maurice  from  marrying  that  woman.  Oh,  Eleanor,  how 
can  you  say  you  love  him,  and  yet  plan  such  terrible  un- 
happiness  for  him?" 

She  turned  and  ran  out  of  the  room,  up  another  flight 
of  stairs  to  her  own  bedroom.  There  she  fell  down  on  her 
bed  and  lay  tense  and  rigid,  her  face  hidden  in  her  hands. 
This,  then,  was  what  Maurice  had  meant?  She  saw  again 
the  wood  path,  and  the  tall  fern  breaking  under  Maurice's 
racquet;  she  saw  the  flecks  of  sunshine  on  the  moss — 
she  heard  him  say  he  "hadn't  played  the  game  with  Elea- 
nor." Oh,  he  hadn't,  he  hadn't !  Then  she  thought  of  the 


352  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

Dale  woman.  The  accident  on  the  river.  The  stumble  at 
the  gate  and  of  Maurice's  child  in  Lily's  arms.  "Oh,  poor 
Eleanor !  poor  Eleanor ! .  .  .  All  the  same,  she  is  wicked,  to 
be  so  cruel  to  him.  She  is  taking  her  revenge.  Jealousy 
has  made  her  wicked.  But,  oh,  I  wish  I  hadn't  hurt  her 
in  the  garden!  But  how  could  Maurice — that  little, 
common  woman !  How  could  he  ? "  She  shook  with  sobs : 
"Poor,  poor  Eleanor.  ..." 

Eleanor,  on  her  big  bed,  lay  panting  with  anger  and 
fright.  ' '  Now  she'll  know  I  'm  hiding  something  from  him ! ' ' 
she  thought;  "I've  put  myself  in  her  power  by  having  a 
secret  with  her;  just  as  I  put  myself  in  Lily's  power  by 
asking  her  not  to  tell  Maurice  I  had  been  there.  Well, 
Edith  is  in  my  power! — because  I've  made  her  know  he'll 
never  care  for  her.  And  she'll  keep  her  word;  she'll  not 
tell  him  about  the  river." 

The  relief  of  this  was  so  great  that  she  could  almost 
forget  her  humiliation;  she  gave  herself  up  to  thinking 
what  she  herself  must  do  to  keep  Maurice  in  ignorance. 
"Auntie  will  be  sure  to  say  something.  But  he  knows  how 
silly  she  is.  She  thought  we'd  quarreled,  and  that  I  had 
tried  ...  I  might  tell  Maurice  that?  And  he'll  make 
fun  of  her,  and  won't  believe  anything  she  says !  I  might 
say  that  I  went  out  to — to  see  our  river,  and  slipped  and 
got  wet,  and  that  Auntie  thought  we'd  quarreled,  and 
that  I  had  .  .  .  had  tried  to  ...  to —  And  he'll  say, 
'What  a  joke!'  But  maybe  he'll  say,  'Why  did  you  go 
out  to  Medfield  so  late?'  And  I'll  say,  'Oh,  well,  I  got 
delayed.'  .  .  .  Yes,  that's  the  thing  to  do." 

So,  around  and  around,  her  poor,  frantic  thoughts  raced 
and  trampled  one  another.  When  Mrs.  Newbolt  inter- 
rupted them  with  a  tray  and  some  supper,  Eleanor,  with 
eyes  closed,  motioned  her  away:  "My  head  aches.  I 
can't  eat  anything.  I'm  going  to  try  and  get  a  little  sleep. ' ' 

By  and  by,  through  sheer  fatigue,  she  did  drowse,  and 
when  the  wheels  of  Maurice's  cab  grated  against  the  curb, 
she  was  asleep. 

Edith,  upstairs  in  her  own  room,  heard  the  front  door 
close  sharply.  "I  can't  see  him!"  she  said;  "I  mustn't 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  353 

see  him."  But  she  wanted  to  see  him;  she  wanted  to  say 
to  him:  "Maurice,  you  can  make  it  all  up  to  Eleanor! 
You  can  make  her  happy.  Don't  despair  about  it — we'll 
all  help  you  make  it  up  to  her! "  She  wanted  to  say:  "Oh, 
Maurice,  you  will  conquer.  I  know  you  will ! "  If  she  could 
only  see  him  and  tell  him  these  things!  "If  I  didn't  love 
him,  I  could,"  she  thought.  .  .  . 

Maurice  came  hurrying  into  the  parlor,  with  the  anx- 
ious, ' '  How  is  she  ? "  on  his  lips ;  and  Mrs.  Newbolt  and  Mrs. 
Houghton  were  full  of  reassurances,  and  suggestions  of 
food,  which  he  negatived  promptly.  "Tell  me  about 
Eleanor!  What  happened?" 

"She's  asleep,"  Mrs.  Newbolt  said.  "You  must  have 
something  to  eat — "  She  was  in  such  a  panic  of  uncer- 
tainty as  to  what  must  and  must  not  be  said  to  Maurice 
that  she  clutched  at  supper  as  a  perfectly  safe  topic.  "I — 
I — I'll  go  and  see  about  your  supper,"  said  Mrs.  Newbolt, 
and  trundled  off  to  hide  herself  in  the  dining  room. 

Mary  Houghton  could  not  hide,  but  she  would  have 
been  glad  to!  "Eleanor  is  sleepy,  now,  Maurice,"  she 
said;  "but  she'll  want  to  have  just  a  glimpse  of  you — " 

"I'll  go  right  up!" 

"Maurice,  wait  one  minute.  If  I  were  you,  I  wouldn't 
get  Eleanor  to  talking,  to-night;  she's  a  little  feverish — " 

"Mrs.  Houghton!"  he  broke  in,  "Eleanor's  all  right, 
isn't  she?"  His  face  was  furrowed  with  alarm.  (If  that 
wicked  rhythm  of  the  wheels  should  begin  again !) 

"Oh  yes;  I — I  think  so.  She  hasn't  quite  got  over  the 
shock  yet,  but — " 

"What  shock?  Nobody's  told  me  yet  what  it  was! 
Your  dispatch  only  said  she'd  slipped  into  the  water.  What 
water?" 

"We  don't  really  know,"  said  Mrs.  Houghton;  "and 
she  mustn't  be  worried  with  questions,  the  doctor  says. 
You  see,  she  got  dripping  wet,  somehow,  and  then  had  a 
long  trolley  ride — and  she  had  a  cold  to  start  with — " 

"I'll  just  crawl  upstairs,  and  see  if  she's  awake,"  said 
Maurice.  "I  won't  disturb  her." 

As  he  started  softly  upstairs,  Mrs.  Newbolt  opened  the 


354  THE]  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

dining-room  door  a  crack,  and  peered  in  at  Mary  Hough- 
ton.  ' '  Did  you  tell  him  ? "  she  said,  in  a  wheezing  whisper. 

Airs.  Houghton  shook  her  head. 

"Well,  I  can  tell  you  who  won't  tell  him,"  said  Eleanor's 
aunt;  "me!  To  tell  a  man  that  his  wife — " 

"Hush-sh!"  said  Mrs.  Houghton;  "he's  coming  down- 
stairs. Besides,  we  don't  know  that  she  did — " 

The  dining-room  door  closed  softly  on  the  whispered 
words:  "Puffect  nonsense.  Of  course  we  know." 

Maurice,  tiptoeing  into  Eleanor's  room,  thought  she  was 
asleep,  and  was  backing  out  again,  when  she  opened 
drowsy  eyes  and  said,  faintly,  "Hullo." 

He  bent  over  to  kiss  her.  "Well,  you're  a  great  girl,  to 
cut  up  like  this  when  I'm  away  from  home!" 

She  smiled,  closed  her  eyes,  and  he  tiptoed  out  of  tha 
room.  .  .  . 

Back  again  in  the  parlor,  he  began,  "Mrs.  Houghton, 
for  Heaven's  sake,  tell  me  the  whole  thing!"  He  wasn't 
anxious  now;  as  far  as  he  could  see,  Eleanor  was  "all 
right " — just  sleepy.  But  what  on  earth — 

She  told  him  what  she  knew;  what  she  suspected,  she 
kept  to  herself.  But  she  might  as  well  have  told  it  all. 
For,  as  he  listened,  his  face  darkened  with  understanding. 

"The  river?  In  Medfield?  But,  why— ?" 

"Edith  says  you  and  she  had  a  good  deal  of  sentiment 
about  the  river,  and — " 

"At  six  o'clock,  on  a  March  evening?"  said  Maurice. \ 
He  put  his  hands  in  his  pockets  and  began  to  walk  up 
and  down.  Mrs.  Houghton  had  nothing  more  to  say; 
the  room  was  so  silent  that  the  dining-room  door  opened 
a  furtive  crack — then  closed  quickly!  Mrs.  Houghton 
began  to  talk  about  Maurice's  journey,  and  Maurice 
asked  whether  Eleanor  could  be  taken  home  the  next  day — • 
at  which  the  dining-room  door  opened  broadly,  and  Mrs.  j 
Newbolt  said: 

"If  you  ask  me,  I'd  say  '  no ' !  If  you  want  to  know  what ' 
I  think,  I  think  she's  got  a  temperature !  And  she  oughtn't, 
to  stir  out  of  this  house  till  it's  normal." 

"Mrs.  Newbolt,"  said  Maurice,  pausing  in  his  tramp-; 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  355 

ing  up  and  down  the  room;  "why  did  Eleanor  go  out  to 
Medfield?" 

' '  Perhaps  she  was  lookin'  for  a  cook !  I — I  think  I'll  go  to 
bed ! "  said  Mrs.  Newbolt — and  almost  ran  out  of  the  room. 

Maurice  looked  down  at  Mrs.  Houghton,  and  laughed, 
grimly:  "You  might  as  well  tell  me?" 

"My  dear  fellow,  we  have  nothing  to  tell!  We  don't 
know  anything — except  that  Eleanor  has  added  to  her 
cold,  and  is  very  nervous. ' '  She  paused ;  could  she  give  him 
an  idea  of  the  extent  of  Eleanor's  "nervousness,"  and  yet 
not  tell  him  what  they  all  felt  sure  of?  "Why,  Maurice," 
she  said;  "just  to  show  you  how  hysterical  Eleanor  is, 
she  told  me — "  Mrs.  Houghton  dropped  her  voice,  and 
looked  toward  the  dining-room  door;  but  Mrs.  Newbolt 's 
ponderous  step  made  itself  heard  overhead.  "She  said — 
Oh,  Maurice,  this  is  too  foolish  to  repeat;  but  it  just  shows 
how  Eleanor  loves  you.  She  implied  that  she  didn't  want 
to  get  well,  so  that  you  could — could  get  the  little  boy,  by 
marrying  his  mother!" 

Maurice  sat  down  and  stared  at  her,  open-mouthed. 
"Marry?  I,  marry  Lily?"  He  actually  gasped  under  the 
impact  of  a  perfectly  new  idea;  then  he  said,  very  softly, 
"Good  God." 

Mrs.  Houghton  nodded.  "Her  one  thought,"  she  said 
(praying  that,  without  breaking  her  word  to  Eleanor,  and 
betraying  what  was  so  terribly  Eleanor's  own  affair,  she 
might  make  Maurice's  heart  so  ready  for  the  pathos  that 
he  would  not  be  repelled  by  the  folly),  "her  one  desire  is 
that  you  should  have  your  little  boy." 

Maurice  walked  over  to  the  fireplace  and  kicked  two 
eharred  pieces  of  wood  together  between  the  fire  irons. 
In  the  crash  of  Mary  Houghton's  calm  words,  the  rhythm 
of  the  wheels  was  permanently  silenced. 

It  was  about  four  o'clock  the  next  morning  that  the 
change  came :  Eleanor  had  a  violent  chill. 

"I  thought  we  were  out  of  the  woods,"  the  doctor  said, 
frowning;  "but  I  guess  I  was  too  previous.  There's  a 
spot  in  the  left  lung,  Mr.  Curtis." 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

WHEN  Maurice  saw  his  wife  the  next  morning,  it 
was  with  Mrs.  Houghton's  warning — emphasized 
by  the  presence  of  a  nurse — that  he  must  not  excite  her. 
So  he  sat  at  her  bedside  and  told  her  about  his  trip,  and 
how  he  had  got  ahead  of  the  Greenleaf  heirs,  and  how 
he  rushed  back  to  Mercer  the  minute  those  dispatches 
came  saying  that  she  was  ill — and  he  never  asked  her  why 
she  was  ill,  or  what  took  her  out  to  the  river  in  the  cold 
dusk  of  that  March  afternoon.  She  didn't  try  to  tell 
him.  She  was  very  warm  and  drowsy — and  she  held  in 
her  hand,  under  the  bedclothes,  that  letter  which  proved 
how  much  she  loved  him,  and  which,  sometime,  when  she 
got  well,  she  would  show  him.  All  that  day  the  house- 
hold outside  her  closed  door  was  very  much  upset;  but 
Eleanor,  in  the  big  bed,  was  perfectly  placid.  She  lay 
there  watching  the  tarnished  gilt  pendulum  swing  between 
the  black  pillars  of  the  clock  on  the  mantelpiece,  think- 
ing— thinking.  "You'll  be  all  right  to-morrow!"  Maurice 
would  say;  and  she  would  smile  silently  and  go  on  think- 
ing. "When  I  get  well,"  she  thought,  "I  will  do — so  and 
so."  By  and  by,  still  with  the  letter  clutched  in  her  hot 
hand,  she  began  to  say  to  herself,  "If  I  get  well."  She 
had  ceased  worrying  over  how  she  was  going  to  explain 
the  "accident"  to  Maurice;  that  "if"  left  a  door  open 
into  eternal  reticence.  So,  instead  of  worrying,  she  made 
plans  for  Jacky:  "He  must  see  a  dentist,"  she  told  Mau- 
rice. On  the  third  day  she  stopped  saying,  "If  I  get 
well,"  and  thought,  "When  I  die."  She  said  it  very  tran- 
quilly, "When  I  die  Maurice  must  get  him  a  bicycle." 
She  thought  of  this  happily,  for  dying  meant  that  she  had 
not  failed.  She  would  not  be  ridiculous  to  Maurice — she 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  357 

would  be  his  wife,  giving  him  a  child — a  son !  So  she  lay 
with  her  eyes  closed,  thinking  of  the  bicycle  and  many  lit- 
tle, pleasant  things;  and  with  the  old,  slipping  inexactness 
of  mind  she  told  herself  that  she  had  not  "done  anything 
wrong";  she  had  not  drowned  herself!  She  had  just 
caught  a  bad  cold.  But  she  would  die,  and  Maurice 
would  love  her  for  giving  him  Jacky.  Toward  evening, 
however,  an  uneasy  thought  came  to  her:  if  Maurice 
knew  that,  to  give  him  Jacky,  she  had  even  tried  to  get 
drowned,  it  might  distress  him?  She  wished  she  hadn't 
written  the  letter !  It  would  hurt  him  to  see  it.  ...  Well, 
but  he  needn't  see  it!  She  held  out  the  crumpled  envelope. 
"Miss  Ryan,"  she  said  to  the  nurse,  huskily,  "please  burn 
this." 

"Yes,  indeed!"  said  Miss  Ryan.  .  .  . 

There  was  a  burst  of  flame  in  the  fireplace,  and  the  little, 
pitiful  letter,  with  its  selfishness  and  pain  and  sacrifice, 
vanished — as  Lily's  handkerchief  had  vanished,  and  the 
braided  ring  of  blossoming  grass — all  gone,  as  the  sparks 
that  fly  upward.  Nobody  could  ever  know  the  scented 
humiliation  of  the  handkerchief,  or  the  agony  of  the  faded 
ring,  or  the  renouncing  love  which  had  written  the  poor 
foolish  letter.  Maurice  wouldn't  be  pained.  As  for  her 
gift  to  him  of  Jacky,  she  would  just  tell  him  she  wanted 
him  to  marry  Lily,  so  he  could  have  his  child.  .  .  .  And 
Edith?  Oh,  he  would  never  think  of  Edith! 

So  she  was  very  peaceful  until,  the  next  day,  she  heard 
Edith's  voice  in  the  hall,  then  she  frowned.  "She's 
here!  In  the  house  with  him!  Don't  let  her  come  in," 
she  told  Maurice;  "she  takes  my  breath."  But,  some- 
how, she  couldn't  help  thinking  of  Edith.  .  .  .  "That  morn- 
ing in  the  garden  she  cried,"  Eleanor  thought.  It  was 
strange  to  think  of  tears  in  those  clear,  careless  eyes.  "I 
never  supposed  she  could  cry.  I've  cried  a  good  deal. 
Men  don't  like  tears."  And  there  had  been  tears  in 
Edith's  eyes  when  she  came  in  and  sat  on  the  bed  and 
said  she  was  "unhappy."  . . .  "She  believed,"  Eleanor  med- 
itated, her  own  eyes  closed,  "that  it  was  because  of  her 


353  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

that  I  went  out  to  the  river."    She  was  faintly  sorry  that1 
Edith  should  reproach  herself.     "I  didn't  do  it  because' 
she  made  me  angry;  I  did  it  to  make  Maurice  happy.    Ij 
almost  wish  she  knew  that."     Perhaps  it  was  this  vague 
regret  that  made  her  remember  Edith's  assertion  that  she 
would  do  "anything  on  earth"  to  keep  Maurice  from 
marrying  Lily.     "But  that's  the  only  way  he  can  be  sure 
of  getting  Jacky,"  Eleanor  argued  to  herself,  her  mind 
clearing  into  helpless  perplexity — "and  it's  the  only  way 
to  keep  him  from  Edith.    But  I  wish  Lily  wasn't  so  vulgar. 
Maurice  won't  like  living  with  her."    Suddenly  she  said, 
"Maurice,  do  send  the  nurse  out  of  the  room.    I  want  to 
tell  you  something,  darling."    She  was  very  hoarse. 

"Better  not  talk,  dear,"  he  said,  anxiously. 

She  smiled  and  shook  her  head.  "I  just  want  to  tell 
you:  I  don't  mind  not  getting  well,  because  then  you'll 
marry  Lily." 

"Eleanor!    Don't— don't— " 

"And  you  can  give  little  Jacky  the  kind  of  home  he 
ought  to  have." 

She  drowsed.  Maurice  sat  beside  her  with  his  face 
buried  in  his  hands.  When  she  awoke,  at  dusk,  she  lay 
peacefully  watching  the  firelight  flickering  on  the  ceiling, 
and,  thinking — thinking.  Then,  into  her  peace,  broke 
again  the  memory  of  Edith's  distress.  "Perhaps  I  ought 
to  tell  her  that  I  went  to  the  river  for  Maurice's  sake? 
Not  because  I  was  angry  at  her."  She  thought  of  Edith's 
tears,  and  said,  "Poor Edith — "  And  when  she  said  that 
a  strange  thing  happened:  pity,  like  a  soft  breath,  blew  - 
out  the  vehement  flame.  It  is  always  so;  pity  and  jeal- 
ousy are  never  together.  .  .  . 

The  next  morning  she  remembered  her  words  about 
Jacky — "the  kind  of  home  he  ought  to  have" — and  again 
uneasiness  as  to  the  kind  of  "home"  it  would  be  for 
Maurice  rose  in  her  mind.  Her  head  whirled  with  worry. 
"It  won't  be  pleasant  for  him  to  live  with  her,  even  if 
she  can  cook.  He  loves  that  chocolate  cake;  but  he 
couldn't  bear  her  grammar.  Edith  said  I  was  *  unkind' 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  359 

to  him.  Am  I?  I  suppose  she  thought  he'd  be  happier 
with  her?  Would  he?  She  can  make  that  cake,  too. 
Yes;  he  would  be  happier  with  her  than  with  Lily; — and 
Jacky  would  call  her  'Mother.'"  Then  she  forgot  Edith. 

After  a  while  she  said:  "Maurice,  can't  I  see  Jacky? 
Go  get  him!  And  give  Lily  the  car  fare." 

Maurice  went  downstairs  and  called  Mrs.  Houghton  out 
of  the  parlor;  in  the  hall  he  said:  "I  think  Eleanor's  sort 
of  mixed  up.  She  is  talking  about  '  Lily's  car  fare ' !  What 
do  you  suppose  she  means?  Is  she — delirious?  And 
then  she  says  she  'wants  to  see  Jacky.'  What  must 
I  do?" 

"Go  and  get  him,"  she  said. 

For  a  bewildered  minute  he  hesitated.  If  Mrs.  New- 
bolt  should  see  Jacky,  she  .  .  .  would  know!  And  Edith 
.  .  .  would  she  suspect?  Still  he  went — like  a  man  in  a 
dream.  As  he  got  off  the  car,  a  block  from  Lily's  door, 
a  glimpse  of  the  far-off  end  of  the  route  where  "Eleanor's 
meadow"  lay,  made  his  purpose  still  more  dreamlike. 
But  he  was  abruptly  direct  with  Lily:  he  had  come,  he 
said,  to  tell  her  that  his  wife  wanted — 

"My  soul  and  body!"  she  broke  in;  "if  she's  sent 
you — "  They  were  in  the  dining  room,  Maurice  so  pale 
that  Lily,  in  real  alarm,  had  put  her  hand  on  his  arm  and 
made  him  sit  down.  But  she  was  angry.  "Has  she  got 
on  to  that  again?" 

His  questioning  bewilderment  brought  her  explanation. 

"She  didn't  tell  you  she'd  been  here?  Well,  I  promised 
her  I  wouldn't  give  her  away  to  you,  and  I  wouldn't, — 
but  so  long  as  she's  sent  you,  now,  there's  no  harm,  I 
guess,  telling  you?"  So  she  told  him.  "What  possessed 
you  to  let  on  to  her  ? "  she  ended.  She  was  puzzled  at  his 
folly,  but  she  was  sympathetic,  too.  "I  suppose  she 
ragged  it  out  of  you?" 

Maurice  had  listened,  silently,  his  elbow  on  his  knee,  his 
fist  hard  against  his  mouth ;  he  did  not  try  to  tell  her  why 
he  had  "let  on";  he  could  not  say  that  he  wanted  to 
defend  his  son  from  such  a  mother;  still  less  could  he 


360  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

make  clear  to  her  that  Eleanor  had  not  "ragged  it  out 
of  him,"  but  that,  to  his  famished  passion  for  truth,  con- 
fession had  been  the  Bread  of  Life.  He  looked  at  her  once 
or  twice  as  she  talked ;  pretty,  yet ;  kindly,  coarse,  honest 
— and  Eleanor  had  supposed  that  he  would  marry  her! 
Then,  sharply,  his  mind  pictured  that  scene:  his  wife,  his 
poor,  frightened  old  Eleanor,  pleading  for  the  gift  of 
Jacky!  And  Lily — young,  arrogant,  kind.  .  .  .  The  pain 
of  it  made  his  passion  of  pity  so  like  love  that  the  tears 
stood  in  his  eyes.  "Oh,  she  mustn't  die,"  he  thought; 
"I  won't  let  her  die!" 

When  Lily  had  finished  her  story  he  told  her  his,  very 
briefly:  his  wife's  forgiveness  of  his  unfaithfulness;  her 
desire  to  do  all  she  could  for  Jacky:  "Help  me — I  mean 
help  you — to  make  a  man  of  him,  because  she  loves 
me.  Heaven  knows  I'm  not  worthy  of  it." 

Lily  gulped.  "She  ain't  young;  but,  my  God,  she's 
some  woman!"  She  threw  her  apron  over  her  face  and 
cried  hard ;  then  stopped  and  wiped  her  eyes.  ' '  She  wants 
to  see  him,  does  she?  Well,  you  bet  she  shall  see  him! 
I'll  get  him;  he's  playing  in  at  Mr.  Dennett's — he's  all 
on  being  an  undertaker  now.  Mr.  Dennett's  a  Funeral 
Pomps  Director.  But  he's  got  to  put  on  his  new  suit." 
She  ran  out  on  to  the  porch,  and  Maurice  could  hear  the 
colloquy  across  the  fence:  "You  come  in  the  house, 
quick!" 

"Won't.    We're  going  to  in-in-inter  a  hen." 

"Yes,  you  will!  You're  going  to  put  on  your  new  suit 
and  go  and  see  a  lady — " 

"Lady?    Not  on  your  life." 

"It's  Mr.  Curtis  wants  you — "  Then  Jacky's  yell, 
" Mr.  Curtis?"  and  a  dash  up  the  back  steps  and  into  the 
dining  room — then,  silent,  grimy  adoration! 

Maurice  gave  his  orders.  "Change  your  clothes,  young 
man.  I'll  bring  him  back,  Lily,  as  soon  as  she's  seen 
him." 

While  he  waited  for  the  new  suit  Maurice  walked  up 
and  down  the  little  room,  round  and  round  the  table, 


361 

where  on  a  turkey-red  cloth  a  hideous  hammered  brass 
bowl  held  some  lovely  maidenhair  ferns.  The  vision  of 
Eleanor  abasing  herself  to  Lily  was  unendurable.  To 
drive  it  from  his  mind,  he  went  to  the  window  and  stood 
looking  out  through  the  fragrant  greenness  of  rose  gera- 
niums, into  the  squalid  street  where  the  offspring  of  the 
Funeral  Pomps  Director  were  fighting  over  the  dead  hen; 
from  the  bathroom  came  the  sound  of  a  sputtering  gush 
from  the  hot-water  faucet;  then  splashes  and  whining 
protests,  and  maternal  adjurations:  "You  got  to  look 
decent!  I  will  wash  behind  your_ears.  You're  the  worst 
boy  on  the  street!" 

"Eleanor  tried  to  save  him,"  he  thought;  "she  came 
here,  and  begged  for  him!" 

Above  the  bathroom  noises  came  Lily's  voice,  sharp  with 
efficiency,  but  shaking  with  pity  and  a  quick-hearted 
purpose  of  helping:  "Say,  Mr.  Curtis!  Could  she  eat 
some  fresh  doughnuts?  (Jacky,  if  you  don't  stand  still 
I'll  give  you  a  reg'lar  spanking!  I  didn't  put  soap  in 
your  eyes!)  If  she  can,  I'll  fry  some  for  her  to-morrow." 

Maurice,  tramping  back  and  forth,  made  no  answer; 
he  was  saying  to  himself,  "If  she'll  just  live,  I  will  make 
her  happy!  Oh,  she  must  live!"  It  was  then  that,  sud- 
denly, agonizingly,  in  the  midst  of  splashings,  and  Jacky's 
whines,  and  Lily's  anxiety  about  soap  and  doughnuts, 
Maurice  Curtis  prayed.  .  .  . 

He  did  not  know  it  was  prayer;  it  was  just  a  cry:  "Do 
something — oh,  do  something!  Do  you  hear  me?  She 
tried  so  hard  to  save  Jacky.  Make  her  get  well!"  So  it 
was  that,  in  his  selfless  cry  for  happiness  for  Eleanor, 
Maurice  found  all  those  differing  realizations — Joy,  and 
Law,  and  Life,  and  Love — and  lo !  they  were  one — a  per- 
sonality !  God.  In  his  frantic  words  he  established  a  rela- 
tionship with  Him — not  It,  any  longer!  "Please,  please 
make  her  get  well,"  he  begged,  humbly. 

At  that  moment,  at  the  door  of  the  dining  room,  ap- 
peared an  immaculate  Jacky  in  his  new  suit,  his  face  shin- 
ing with  bliss  and  soap.  He  came  and  stood  beside 


362  THE" VEHEMENT  FLAME 

Maurice,  waiting  his  monarch's  orders,  and  listening, 
without  comprehension,  to  the  conversation: 

"Nothing  will  be  said  to  him  that  will  .  .  .  give  any- 
thing away.  She  just  wants  to  see  him.  His  presence 
in  the  room — " 

Jacky  gave  a  little  leap.     "Did  you  say  presents!" 

" — his  merely  being  there  will  please  her.  She  loves 
him,  Lily.  You  see,  she's  always  wanted  children,  and — 
we've  never  had  any." 

Jacky's  mother  said,  in  a  muffled  voice,  "My  land!" 
Then  she  caught  Jacky  in  her  arms  and  kissed  him  all 
over  his  face. 

"Aw,  stop,"  said  Jacky,  greatly  embarrassed;  to  have 
Mr.  Curtis  see  him  being  kissed,  "like  a  kid!"  was  a  cruel 
mortification.  "Aw,  let  up,"  said  Jacky. 

When  he  and  Mr.  Curtis  started  in  to  town  his  eyes 
seemed  to  grow  bluer,  and  his  face  more  beaming,  and  his 
voice,  asking  endless  questions,  more  joyous  every  minute. 
In  the  car  he  shoved  up  very  close  to  Maurice,  and  tried 
to  think  of  something  wonderful  to  tell  him.  By  and  by, 
breathing  loudly,  he  achieved:  "Say,  Mr.  Curtis,  our  ash 
sifter  got  broke."  Then  he  shoved  a  little  closer.  Just 
before  they  reached  Mrs.  Newbolt's  house  the  haggard, 
unhappy  father  gave  his  son  orders : 

"There  is  a  lady  who  wants  to  see  you,  Jacky.  She's 
my  wife.  Mrs.  Curtis.  You  are  to  be  very  polite  to 
her,  and  kiss  her — " 

"Kiss  a  lady!" 

"Yes.     You'll  do  what  I  tell  you!    Understand?" 

"Yes,  sir,"  Jacky  said,  sniffling. 

"You  are  to  tell  her  you  love  her;  but  3 ou  are  not  to 
speak  unless  you  are  spoken  to.  Do  you  get  on  to  that?" 

"Yes,  sir.     No,  sir,"  poor  Jacky  said,  dejectedly. 

It  was  Edith  who,  watching  for  Maurice  from  the  par- 
lor window,  opened  the  front  door  to  him.  She  looked  up 
into  his  eyes,  then  down  into  Jacky's,  who,  at  that  mo- 
ment, took  the  opportunity,  sighing,  to  obey  orders;  he 
reached  up  and  gave  a  little  peck  at  Edith's  cheek. 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  363 

"I  love  you,"  he  said,  gloomily.  "I  done  it,"  he  told 
Maurice.  "He  said  I  got  to,"  he  explained  to  Edith,  re- 
signedly, as  she,  startled  but  pleased,  took  his  little  rough 
hand  in  hers. 

Just  as  she  did  so  Mrs.  Newbolt,  coming  downstairs, 
saw  him  and  stopped  short  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence — 
the  relationship  between  the  man  and  the  child  was  un- 
mistakable. When  she  got  her  breath  she  said,  coldly: 
"There's  a  change,  Maurice.  Better  go  right  upstairs." 

He  went,  hurriedly,  leading  his  little  boy  by  the 
hand. 

"Well,  upon  my  word !"  said  Mrs.  Newbolt,  looking  after 
the  small,  climbing  figure  in  the  new  suit.  "I  wouldn't 
have  believed  such  a  thing  of  Maurice  Curtis — oh,  my 
poor  Eleanor ! "  she  said,  and  burst  out  crying.  "  I  suppose 
she  knows?  Did  she  want  to  see  the  child ?  I  always  said 
she  was  a  puffect  angel !  But  I  don't  wonder  she — she  got 
wet.  .  .  ." 

Eleanor  was  very  close  to  the  River  now,  yet  she  smiled 
when  Jacky's  shrinking  lips  touched  her  cheek. 

"Take  her  hand,"  Maurice  told  him,  softly,  and  the 
little  boy,  silent  and  frightened,  obeyed;  but  he  kept  his 
eyes  on  his  father. 

Eleanor,  with  long  pauses,  said:  "Dear  .  .  ,  Jacky. 
Maurice,  did  you  give  her  .  .  .  five  cents?  He  must 
have  .  .  .  music  lessons." 

"Yes,  Star,"  he  said,  brokenly.  "Jacky,"  he  said,  in 
a  whisper,  "say  'I  love  you.'" 

But  Jacky  whispered  back,  anxiously,  "But  I  said  it  to 
the  other  one?" 

"Say  iir  his  father  said. 

"I  love  you,"  said  Jacky,  trembling. 

Eleanor  smiled,  slept  for  a  moment,  then  opened  her 
eyes.  "He  doesn't  look  .  .  .  like  her?" 

"Not  in  the  least,"  Maurice  said. 

Jacky,  quailing,  tried  to  draw  his  hand  away  from  those 
cool  fingers ;  but  a  look  from  his  father  stopped  him. 

"No,"  Eleanor  murmured;    "I  see  ...  it  won't  do 

24  .«— ~ 


364  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

for" — Maurice  bent  close  to  her  lips,  but  he  could  not 
catch  the  next  words — "for  you  to  marry  her." 

After  that  she  was  silent  for  so  long  that  Maurice  led 
the  little  boy  out  of  the  room.  As  he  brought  him  into 
the  parlor,  Henry  Houghton,  who  had  just  come  in, 
looked  at  the  father  and  son,  and  felt  astonishment  tingle 
in  his  veins  like  an  electric  shock.  He  gripped  Maurice's 
hand,  silently,  and  gave  Jacky's  ear  a  friendly  pull. 

"Edith,"  Maurice  said,  "I  would  take  him  home,  but 
I  mustn't  leave  Eleanor.  Will  you  get  one  of  the  maids 
to  put  him  on  a  Medfield  car — " 

"I'll  take  him,"  Edith  said. 

Maurice  began  to  say,  sharply,  "No!"  then  he  stopped; 
after  all,  why  not?  "She  must  know  the  whole  business 
by  this  time.  Jacky's  face  gives  it  all  away."  She  might 
as  well,  he  thought,  know  Jacky's  mother,  as  she  knew 
his  father. 

Jacky,  in  a  little  growling  voice,  said,  "Don't  want 
nobody  to  put  me  on  no  car.  I  can — " 

"Be  quiet,  my  boy,"  Maurice  said,  gently.  He  gave 
Edith  Lily's  address  and  went  back  upstairs. 

Henry  Houghton,  watching  and  listening,  felt  his  face 
twitch;  then  he  blew  his  nose  loudly.  "I'll  look  after 
him,"  he  told  Edith.  "I — I'll  take  him  to — the  person 
he  lives  with.  It  isn't  suitable  for  a  girl — " 

In  spite  of  the  gravity  of  the  moment  his  girl  laughed. 
' '  Father,  you  are  a  lamb !  No ;  I  '11  take  him. ' '  Then  she 
gave  Jacky  a  cooky,  which  he  ate  thoughtfully. 

"We  have  'em  nicer  at  our  house,"  he  said.  On  the 
corner,  waiting  for  the  Medfield  car,  Edith  offered  a 
friendly  hand,  which  he  refused  to  notice.  The  humilia- 
tion of  being  taken  home,  "by  a  woman!"  was  scorching 
his  little  pride.  He  made  up  his  mind  that  if  them  scab 
Dennett  boys  seen  him  getting  out  of  the  car  with  a 
woman,  he'd  lick  the  tar  out  of  them!  All  the  way  to 
Maple  Street  he  sat  with  his  face  glued  to  the  window, 
never  speaking  a  word  to  the  "woman."  When  the  car 
stopped  he  pushed  out  ahead  of  her  and  tore  down  the 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  365 

street.  Happily  no  Dennett  boys  saw  him ! — but  he  dashed 
past  his  mother,  who  was  standing  at  the  gate,  and  dis- 
appeared in  the  house. 

Lily,  bareheaded  in  the  pale  April  sunshine,  had  been 
watching  for  him  rather  anxiously.  In  deference  to  the 
occasion  she  had  changed  her  dress;  a  string  of  green-glass 
beads,  encircling  her  plump  white  neck,  glimmered  through 
the  starched  freshness  of  an  incredibly  frank  blouse,  and 
her  white  duck  skirt  was  spotless.  Her  whole  little  fat 
body  was  as  fresh  and  sweet  as  one  of  her  own  hyacinths, 
and  her  kind  face  had  the  unchanging,  unhuman  youth- 
fulness  of  flesh  and  blood  which  has  never  been  harried 
by  the  indwelling  soul.  But  she  was  frowning.  She  had 
begun  to  be  nervous;  Jacky  had  been  away  nearly  two 
hours!  "Are  they  playing  a  gum  game  on  me?"  Lily 
thought;  "Are  they  going  to  try  and  kidnap  him?"  It 
was  then  that  she  caught  sight  of  Jacky,  tearing  toward 
home,  his  fierce  blue  eyes  raking  the  street  for  any  of  them 
there  Dennett  boys,  who  must  have  the  tar  licked  out  of 
'em!  Edith  was  following  him,  in  hurrying  anxiety.  In- 
stantly Lily  was  reassured.  "One  of  Mrs.  Curtis's  lady 
friends,  I  suppose,"  she  thought.  "Well,  it's  up  to  me 
to  keep  her  guessing  on  Jacky!"  She  was  very  polite  and 
simpering  when,  at  the  gate,  Edith  said  that  Mr.  Curtis 
asked  her  to  bring  Jacky  home. 

"Won't  you  come  in  and  be  seated?"  Lily  urged,  hos- 
pitably. 

Edith  said  no;  she  was  sorry;  but  she  must  go  right 
back;  "Mrs.  Curtis  is  very  ill,  I  am  sorry  to  say." 

At  this  moment  Jacky  came  out  to  the  gate ;  he  had  two 
cookies  in  his  hand.  He  said,  shyly:  "Maw's  is  better 
'an  yours.  You  can  have" — this  with  a  real  effort — "the 
big  one." 

Edith  took  the  "big  one,"  pleasantly,  and  said,  "Yes, 
they  are  nicer  than  ours,  Jacky." 

But  Lily  was  mortified.  "The  lady  '11  think  you  have 
no  manners.  Go  on  back  into  the  house!" 

"Won't,"  said  Jacky,  eating  his  cooky. 


366  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

His  mother  tried  to  cover  his  obstinacy  with  conversa- 
tion: "He's  crazy  about  Mr.  Curtis.  Well,  no  wonder. 
Mr.  Curtis  was  a  great  friend  of  my  husband's.  Mr. 
Dale — his  name  was  Augustus;  I  named  Jacky  after  him; 
Grnest  Augustus.  He  died  three  years  ago;  no,  I  guess 
it  was  two — " 

"Huh?"  said  Jacky,  interested.  "You  said  my  paw 
died—" 

Lily,  with  that  desire  to  smack  her  son  which  every 
mother  knows,  cut  his  puzzled  arithmetic  short.  "Yes. 
Mr.  Dale  was  a  great  clubman.  In  Philadelphia.  I  be- 
lieve that's  where  he  and  Mr.  Curtis  got  to  be  chums. 
But  I  never  met  her." 

Edith  said,  rigidly,  "Really?" 

"  Jacky 's  the  image  of  Mr.  Dale.  He  died  of — of 
typhus  fever.  Mr.  Curtis  was  one  of  the  pallbearers; 
that's  how  I  got  acquainted  with  him.  Jacky  was  six 
then,"  Lily  ended,  breathlessly.  ("I  guess  that's  fixed 
her,"  she  thought.) 

Edith  only  said  again,  "Really?"  Then  added,  "Good 
afternoon,"  and  hurried  away.  So  this  was  the  woman 
Eleanor  would  make  Maurice  marry!  "Never!"  Edith 
said.  "Never!  if  I  can  prevent  it!" 

Upstairs  in  Mrs.  Newbolt's  spare  room,  as  the  twilight 
thickened,  there  was  silence,  except  for  the  terrible 
breathing,  and  the  clock  ticking  away  the  seconds;  one 
by  one  they  fell — like  beads  slipping  from  a  string.  Mau- 
rice sat  holding  Eleanor's  hand.  The  others,  speaking, 
sometimes,  without  sound,  or  moving,  noiselessly,  stood 
before  the  meek  majesty  of  dying.  Waiting.  Waiting. 
It  was  not  until  midnight  that  she  opened  her  eyes  again 
and  looked  at  Maurice,  very  peacefully. 

"Tell  Edith  it  wasn't  what  she  said,  made  me  try  .  .  . 
our  river  .  .  .  Jacky  will  call  her  .  .  .  Tell  Edith  .  .  . 
to  be  kind  to  Jacky." 

She  did  not  speak  again. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

I  HAVE  an  uneasy  feeling,"  said  Mr.  Houghton,  "that 
he  is  thinking  of  marrying  the  woman,  just  to  carry 
out  Eleanor's  wish.  Poor  Eleanor!  Always  doing  the 
wrong  thing,  with  greatness."  This  was  in  September. 
Maurice  was  to  come  up  to  Green  Hill  for  a  Sunday,  and 
the  Houghtons  were  in  the  studio  talking  about  the  ex- 
pected guest.  Later  Edith  was  to  drive  over  to  the 
junction  and  meet  him.  .  .  . 

It  was  not  only  Green  Hill  which  talked  about  Maurice. 
In  the  months  that  followed  Eleanor's  death,  a  good  many 
people  had  pondered  his  affairs,  because,  somehow,  that 
visit  of  Jacky's  to  Mrs.  Newbolt's  house,  got  noised 
abroad,  so  Maurice's  friends  (making  the  inevitable  deduc- 
tions) told  one  another  exactly  what  he  ought  to  do. 

Mrs.  Newbolt  expressed  herself  in  great  detail:  "I 
shall  never  forgive  him,"  she  said;  "my  poor  Eleanor! 
She  forgave  him,  and  sent  for  the  child.  More  than  / 
would  do  for  any  man!  But  I  could  have  told  her  what 
to  expect.  In  fact,  I  did.  I  always  said  if  she  wasn't 
entertainin',  she'd  lose  him.  Yes;  she  had  a  hard  time — 
but  she  kept  her  figger.  Should  Maurice  marry  the — 
boy's  mother?  'Course  not!  Puffect  nonsense.  You 
think  he'll  make  up  to  Edith  Houghton?  She  would 
have  too  much  self-respect  to  look  at  him!  And  if  she 
did,  her  father  would  never  consent  to  it." 

The  Mortons'  opinion  was  just  as  definite:  "I  hope 
Maurice  will  marry  again;  Edith's  just  the  girl  for  him — 
What! "  Mrs.  Morton  interrupted  herself,  at  a  whisper  of 
gossip,  "he  had  a  mistress?  I  don't  believe  a  word  of 
it!" 

"But  I'm  afraid  it's  true,"  her  husband  told  her,  soberly; 
"there's  a  boy."  His  wife's  shocked  face  made  him  add: 


368  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

"I  think  Curtis  will  feel  he  ought  to  legitimatize  the 
youngster  by  marrying  his  mother.  Maurice  is  good  stuff. 
He  won't  sidestep  an  obligation." 

"I  never  heard  of  such  an  awful  idea!"  said  Mrs. 
Morton,  dismayed.  "I  hope  he'll  do  nothing  of  the  kind! 
You  can't  correct  one  mistake  by  making  another.  Don't 
you  agree  with  me?"  she  demanded  of  Doctor  Nelson; 
who  displayed,  of  course,  entire  ignorance  of  Mr.  Curtis's 
affairs. 

He  only  said,  "Well,  it's  a  rum  world." 

Johnny  Bennett,  in  Buenos  Aires,  reading  a  letter  from 
his  father,  said :  "Poor  Eleanor !"  . . .  Then  he  grew  a  little 
pale  under  his  tan,  and  added  something  which  showed 
his  opinion — not,  perhaps,  of  what  Maurice  ought  to  do, 
but  of  what  he  would  do!  "I  might  as  well  make  it  a 
three-years'  contract,"  Johnny  said,  bleakly,  "instead  of 
one.  Of  course  there  '11  be  no  use  going  back  home. 
Eleanor's  death  settles  my  hash." 

Even  Mrs.  O'Brien,  informed  by  kitchen  leakage  as  to 
what  had  happened,  had  something  to  say:  "He  ought  to 
make  an  honest  woman  of  the  little  fellow's  mother.  But 
to  think  of  him  treating  Miss  Eleanor  that  way!" 

And  now,  in  the  studio,  the  Houghtons  also  were  say- 
ing what  Maurice  ought — and  ought  not! — to  do:  "I'm 
afraid  he's  thinking  of  marrying  her,"  Mr.  Houghton  had 
said;  and  his  wife  had  said,  quickly,  "I  hope  so — for  the 
sake  of  his  child  1" 

"  But,  Mary,"  he  protested,  "look  at  it  from  the  woman's 
point  of  view;  this  'Lily'  would  be  wretched  if  she  had 
to  live  Maurice's  kind  of  life!" 

Edith,  standing  with  her  back  to  her  father  and  mother, 
staring  down  into  the  ashes  of  the  empty  fireplace,  said, 
over  her  shoulder,  "Maurice  may  marry  somebody  who 
will  help  him  with  Jacky — just  as  Eleanor  would  have 
done,  if  she  had  lived." 

"My  dear,"  her  father  said,  quickly,  "he  has  had 
enough  of  your  sex  to  last  his  lifetime !  As  a  mere  matter 
of  taste,  I  think  Maurice  won't  marry  anybody." 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  369 

"  I  don't  see  why,  just  because  he — did  wrong  ten  years 
ago,"  Edith  said,  "he  has  got  to  sidestep  happiness  for 
the  rest  of  his  life !  But  as  for  marrying  that  Mrs.  Dale, 
it  would  be  a  cat-and-dog  life." 

"Edith,"  said  her  father,  "when  you  agree  with  me  I 
am  filled  with  admiration  for  your  intelligence!  Your 
sex  has,  generally,  mere  intuition — a  nice,  divine  thing, 
and  useful  in  its  way.  But  indifferent  to  logic.  My  sex 
has  judgment;  so  when  you,  a  female,  display  judgment, 
I,  as  a  parent,  am  gratified.  '  Cat-and-dog  life'  is  a  mild 
way  of  putting  it; — a  quarrelsome  home  is  hell, — and  hell 
is  a  poor  place  in  which  to  bring  up  a  child!  Mary,  my 
darling,  you  can  derail  any  train  by  putting  a  big  enough 
obstacle  on  the  track;  the  fact  that  the  obstacle  is  pure 
gold,  like  your  idealism,  wouldn't  prevent  a  domestic 
wreck — in  which  Jacky  would  be  the  victim!  But  in 
regard  to  Maurice's  marrying  anybody  else" — he  paused 
and  looked  at  his  daughter — "that  seems  to  me  undesir- 
able." 

Edith's  face  hardened.  "I  don't  see  why,"  she  said; 
then  added,  abruptly,  "  I  must  go  and  write  some  letters, " 
and  went  quickly  out  of  the  room. 

They  looked  after  her,  and  then  at  each  other. 

' '  You  see  ? ' '  Mary  Houghton  said ;  ' '  she  cares  for  him ! ' ' 

"I  couldn't  face  it!"  her  husband  said;  "I  couldn't 
have  Edith  in  such  a  mess.  Morally  speaking,  of  course 
he  has  a  right  to  marry;  but  he  can't  have  my  girl!  Let 
him  marry  some  other  man's  girl — and  I'll  give  them  my 
blessing.  He's  a  dear  fellow — but  he  can't  have  our 
Edith." 

She  shook  her  head.  "If  it  were  not  for  his  duty  to 
Jacky,  I  would  be  glad  to  have  Edith  marry  him.  And 
as  for  saying  that  she  'can't,'  these  are  not  the  days, 
Henry,  when  fathers  and  mothers  decide  whom  their 
girls  may  marry." 

While  his  old  friends  were  thus  talking  him  over,  Mau- 
rice was  traveling  up  to  the  mountains.  He  had  seen 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Houghton  in  Mercer  several  times  since 


370  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

Eleanor's  death,  but  he  had  not  been  able  to  face  the  asso- 
ciations and  recollections  of  Green  Hill.  This  was  largely 
because,  though  his  friends  had,  with  such  ease,  reached 
decisions  for  him,  he  was  himself  so  absorbed  in  indecision 
that  he  could  not  go  back  to  the  careless  pleasantness  of 
old  intimacies.  (As  for  that  question  of  the  wheels, — '  'if — 
if — if  anything  happens  to  Eleanor? " — Eleanor  herself  had 
answered  it  in  one  word:  Lily.)  So,  since  her  death 
Maurice's  whole  mind  was  intent  on  Jacky.  What  must 
he  do  for  him?  His  occasional  efforts  to  train  the  child 
had  been  met,  more  than  once,  by  sharp  rebuffs.  When- 
ever he  went  to  see  Jacky,  Lily  was  perfectly  good  hu- 
mored— unless  she  felt  she  was  being  criticized;  then  the 
claws  showed  through  the  fur! 

"You  can  give  me  money,  if  you  want  to,  to  send  him 
to  a  swell  school,"  she  said,  once;  "but  I  tell  you,  Mr. 
Curtis,  right  out,  /  ain't  going  to  have  you  come  in  between 
me  and  Jacky  by  talking  up  things  to  him  that  I  don't  care 
about.  All  these  religious  frills  about  Truth!  They  say 
nowadays  hardly  any  rich  people  tell  the  truth.  And 
talking  grammar  to  him!  You  set  him  against  me,"  she 
said,  and  her  eyes  filled  with  angry  tears. 

"I  wouldn't  think  of  setting  him  against  you,"  he  said; 
"only,  I  want  to  do  my  duty  to  him." 

" ' Duty ' ! "  said  Lily,  contemptuously;  " I'm  not  going 
to  bring  him  up  old-fashioned.  And  this  thing  of  telling 
him  not  to  say  'ain't.'  I  say  it,  and  what  else  would  he 
say?  There  ain't  any  other  word.  He's  my  child — and 
I'll  bring  him  up  the  way  I  like!  Wait;  I'll  give  you  some 
fudge;  I've  just  made  it."  .  . 

Maurice,  now,  on  his  way  up  to  Green  Hill,  looking  out 
of  the  car  window,  and  remembering  interviews  like  this 
with  his  son's  mother,  wondered  if  Edith  had  seen  Lily 
the  day  she  took  Jacky  home?  That  made  him  wonder 
what  Edith  would  think  of  the  whole  business?  To  a 
woman  like  Edith  it  would  be  simply  disgusting.  "I'll 
just  drop  out  of  her  life,"  he  said.  He  thought  of  the  day 
he  brought  Jacky  to  Mrs.  Newbolt's  door,  and  Edith  had 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  37i 

looked  at  him — and  then  at  Jacky — and  then  at  him 
again.     She  understood!     Would  she  understand  now? 
Probably  not.    "Of  course  old  Johnny  '11  get  her.  .  .  .  j 
But,  oh,  what  life  might  have  been!" 

Edith  had  driven  over  to  the  junction  earlier  than  was 
necessary,  because  she  had  wanted  to  get  away  from  her 
father  and  mother.  "They  are  afraid  he'll  fall  in  love 
with  me,"  she  thought,  hotly;  "if  he  ever  does,  nothing 
they  can  say  shall  separate  us.  Nothing !  But  mother  '11 
try  to  influence  him  to  marry  that  dreadful  creature,  and 
father  will  say  things  about  'honor,'  so  he'll  feel  he  ought 
never  to  marry — anybody.  Oh,  they  are  lambs,"  she 
said,  setting  her  teeth;  "but  they  mustn't  keep  Maurice 
from  being  happy!"  At  the  station,  as  she  sat  in  the 
buggy  flecking  her  whip  idly,  and  waiting  for  Maurice's 
train,  her  whole  mind  was  on  the  defensive.  "He  has 
a  right  to  be  happy.  He  has  a  right  to  marry  again  .  .  . 
but  they  needn't  worry  about  me!"  she  thought.  "I've 
never  grown  up  to  Maurice.  But  whatever  happens,  he 
sha'n't  marry  that  woman!" 

When  Maurice  got  off  the  train  there  was  a  blank  mo- 
ment when  she  did  not  recognize  him.  As  a  careworn  man 
came  up  to  her  with  an  outstretched  hand  and  a  friendly, 
"This  is  awfully  nice  in  you,  Skeezics!"  she  said,  with  a 
gasp,  "Maurice!"  He  had  aged  so  that  he  looked,  she 
thought,  as  old  as  Eleanor.  But  they  were  both  labori- 
ously casual,  until  the  usual  remarks  upon  the  weather, 
and  the  change  in  the  time-table,  had  been  exhausted. 

It  was  Edith  who  broke  into  reality — Maurice  had 
taken  the  reins,  and  they  were  jogging  slowly  along. 
"Maurice,"  she  said,  "how  is  Jacky?"  His  start  was 
so  perceptible  that  she  said,  "You  don't  mind  my 
asking?" 

"I  don't  mind  anything  you  could  say  to  me,  Edith. 
I'm  grateful  to  you  for  asking." 

"  I  want  to  help  you  about  him,"  she  said. 

He  put  out  his  left  hand  and  gripped  hers.  Then  he 
said:  "I'm  going  to  do  my  best  for  the  little  fellow.  I've 


372  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

botched  my  own  life,  Edith; — of  course  you  know  that? 
But  he  sha'n't  botch  his,  if  I  can  help  it!" 

"I  think  you  can  help  it,"  Edith  said. 

His  heart  contracted;  yet  it  was  what  he  had  expected. 
The  idealism  of  an  absolutely  pure  woman.  "Well,"  he 
said,  heavily,  "of  course  I've  got  to  do  what  I  honestly 
think  is  the  light  thing." 

"Are  you  sure,"  she  said,  "that  you  know  what  the 
right  thing  is?  You  mustn't  make  a  mistake." 

"I  may  be  said  to  have  made  my  share,"  he  told  her, 
dryly. 

She  did  not  answer  that;  she  said,  passionately, 
"Maurice,  I'd  give  anything  in  the  world  if  I  could  help 
you!" 

"Don't  talk  that  way,"  he  commanded,  harshly.  " I'm 
human!  So  please  don't  be  kind  to  me,  Edith;  I  can't 
stand  it." 

Instantly  her  heart  pounded  in  her  throat:  "He  cares. 
Oh,  they  can't  separate  us.  But  they'll  try  to."  .  .  .  The 
rest  of  the  drive  was  rather  silent.  On  the  porch  at 
Green  Hill  the  two  older  friends  were  waiting  to  welcome 
him.  ("Don't  let's  leave  them  alone,"  Henry  Houghton 
had  said,  with  a  worried  look;  which  made  his  wife,  in 
spite  of  her  own  uneasiness,  smile,  "Oh,  Henry,  you  are 
an  innocent  creature!")  After  dinner  Mrs.  Houghton, 
determinedly  commonplace,  came  to  the  rescue  of  what 
threatened  to  be  a  somen-hat  conscious  occasion,  by  talk- 
ing books  and  music.  Her  husband  may  have  been  "in- 
nocent," but  he  did  his  part  by  shoving  a  cigar  box  toward 
the  "boy,"  and  saying,  "How's  business?  We  must  talk 
Weston's  offer  over,"  he  said. 

Maurice  nodded,  but  got  up  and  went  to  the  piano; 
"Tough  on  you,  Skeezics,"  he  said  once,  glancing  at  Edith. 

"Oh,  I  don't  mind  it,  much"  she  said,  drolly. 

So  the  evening  trudged  along  in  secure  stupidity.  Yet 
it  was  a  straining  stupidity,  and  there  was  an  inaudible 
sigh  of  relief  from  everybody  when,  at  last,  Mary  Hough- 
ton  said,  "Come,  good  people!  It's  time  to  go  to  bed." 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  373 

"Yes,  turn  in,  Maurice,"  said  his  host;    "you  look 

"tired."    Then  he  got  on  his  feet,  and  said  good  night  with 

an  alacrity  which  showed  how  much  he  "wished  he  was 

asleep"!    But  he  was  not  permitted  to  sleep.     Maurice, 

swinging  round  from  the  piano,  said,  with  a  rather  rigid 

:face: 

"Would  you  mind  just  waiting  a  minute  and  letting  me 
tell  you  something  about  myself,  Uncle  Henry?" 

"  Of  course  not !"  Mr.  Houghton  said,  with  great  assump- 
tion of  cheerfulness.  He  went  back  to  the  sofa — furtively 
achieving  a  cigar  as  he  did  so — and  saying  to  himself, 
"Well,  at  least  it  will  give  me  a  chance  to  let  him  see  how 
I  feel  about  his  ever  marrying  again." 

Edith  was  standing  by  the  piano,  one  hand  resting  on 
the  keyboard  and  drumming  occasionally  in  disconnected 
octaves.  ("If  it's  business,"  she  thought,  "I'll  leave 
them  alone;  but  if  they  are  going  to  'advise'  him,  I'll 
stay — and  fight.") 

Maurice  came  and  sat  on  the  edge  of  the  big  table,  his 
hands  in  his  pockets,  and  one  foot  swinging  nervously. 
"I  hope  you  dear  people  don't  think  I'm  an  ungrateful 
cuss,  not  to  have  come  to  Green  Hill  this  summer;  but 
the  fact  is,  I've  been  awfully  up  against  it,  trying  to  make 
up  my  mind  about  something." 

Henry  Houghton  looked  at  the  fire  end  of  his  cigar  with 
frowning  intentness  and  said  yes,  he  supposed  so.  "  Wes- 
ton's  offer  seems  to  me  fair,"  he  said  (this  referred  to  a 
partnership  possibility,  on  which  Maurice  had  consulted 
him  by  letter) ;  but  his  remark,  now,  was  so  obviously  a 
running  to  cover  that,  in  spite  of  himself,  Maurice  grinned. 
"Weston's  a  very  square  fellow,"  said  Henry  Houghton. 

"If  you  are  going  to  talk  'offers,'"  said  Edith,  "do  you 
want  me  to  clear  out?" 

"It  isn't  business,"  Maurice  said,  quietly;  "it's  my  .".  . 
little  son.  No;  don't  clear  out,  Edith.  I'd  rather  talk 
to  your  mother  and  Uncle  Henry  before  you." 

"All  right,"  said  Edith,  and  struck  some  soft  chords; 
but  her  young  mouth  was  hard. 


$74  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

"Of  course,"  Maurice  said,   "as  things  are  now—I 
mean  poor  Eleanor  gone — I  have  thought  a  good  deal  of 
what  I  ought  to  do  for  Jacky.     It  was  Nelly's  wish  that  I ' 
should  do  the  straight  thing  for  him.     There  wasn't  any 
question,  I  think,  of  the  'straight  thing'  for  Lily — " 

"Of  course  not!"  Mary  Houghton  agreed.  And 
her  husband  said,  "Any  such  idea  would  be  nonsense, 
Maurice." 

"And  I  myself  don't  count,"  Maurice  went  on. 

Again  Mrs.  Houghton  agreed — very  gravely:  "Com- 
pared to  the  child,  dear  Maurice,  you  don't." 

"You  do!"  Edith  said;  but  nobody  heard  her. 

"So  at  first,"  Maurice  said,  "I  kept  thinking  of  how 
Eleanor  had  wanted  me  to  have  him — legally,  you  know; 
wanted  it  so  much  that  she — "  there  was  a  silence  in  the 
studio;  "that  she  was  glad  to  die,  to  make  it  possible." 
He  paused,  and  Mary  Houghton  saw  his  cheek  twitch. 
"Well,  I  felt  that  clinched  it.  I  felt  I  must  carry  out  her 
wish,  and  ask  Mrs.  Dale  to — marry  me." 

"Morbid,"  said  Henry  Houghton. 

Edith,  listening,  said  nothing;  but  she  was  ready  to 
spring ! 

"Perhaps  it  was  morbid,"  Maurice  said;  "but  just  at 
first  it  seemed  that  way  to  me.  Then  I  began  to  realize 
that  what  poor  Nelly  wanted,  wasn't  to  have  me  marry 
Lily — that  was  only  a  means  to  an  end;  she  wanted  Jacky 
taken  care  of";  (Edith  nodded.)  "And  she  thought 
marrying  his  mother  was  the  best  way  to  do  that. "  (Edith 
shook  her  head.) 

"Well;  I  thought  it  all  over.  ...  I  kept  myself  and  my^ 
own  feelings  out  of  it."     Behind  those  laconic  words  lay' 
the  weeks  of  struggle,  of  which  even  these  good  friends 
could  have  no  idea!    Weeks  in  which,  while  Mercer  was 
deciding  what  he  ought  to  do,  Maurice,  "keeping  him- 
self out  of  it,"  had  put  aside  ambition  and  smothered  taste,' 
and  thrown  over,  once  for  all,  personal  happiness.     As  a 
wrestler  strips  from  his  body  all  hampering  things,  so  he  \ 
had  stripped  from  his  mind  every  instinct  which  might 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  375 

interfere  with  a  straight  answer  to  a  straight  question: 
"What  will  be  best  for  my  boy?"  He  gave  the  answer 
now,  in  Henry  Houghton's  studio,  while  Edith,  over  in 
the  shadows,  at  the  piano,  looked  at  him.  Her  face  was 
quite  pale. 

"So  all  I  had  to  do,"  said  Maurice,  "was  to  think  of 
Jacky's  welfare.  That  made  it  easier  to  decide.  I 
find,"  he  said,  simply,  "that  you  can  decide  things  pretty 
easily  if  you  don't  have  to  think  of  yourself.  So  I  said, 
'If  I  marry  Lily,  though  Jacky  couldn't  be  taken  away 
from  me,  physically,  spiritually' — you  know  what  I 
mean,  Mrs.  Houghton? — 'he  might  be  removed  to — to  the 
ends  of  the  earth!'  I  might  lose  his  affection;  and  I've 
got  to  hold  on  to  that,  at  any  cost,  because  that's  how  I 
can  influence  him."  He  was  talking  now  entirely  to 
Edith's  mother,  and  his  voice  was  harsh  with  entreaty  for 
understanding.  He  didn't  care  very  much  whether  Henry 
Houghton  understood  or  not.  And  of  course  Edith  could 
never  understand !  But  that  this  serene  woman  of  the  stars 
should  misjudge  him  was  unbearable.  "You  see  what 
I  mean,  Mrs.  Houghton,  don't  you?  I  know  Lily; — and 
I  know  that  if  she  thought  I  had  any  right  to  say  how 
he  must  be  brought  up,  it  would  mean  nothing  but  per- 
fectly hideous  controversies  all  the  time!  So  long  as  she 
thinks  she  has  the  upper  hand,  she'll  be  generous;  she 
doesn't  mind  his  being  fond  of  me,  you  know.  But  she'd 
fight  tooth  and  nail  if  she  thought  I  had  any  rights!  You 
see  that,  don't  you?" 

"/see  it!  "Edith  said. 

"Yet  from  a  merely  material  point  of  view,"  said  Mrs. 
Houghton,  "in  spite  of  'controversies,'  legitimacy  would 
give  Jacky  advantages,  which — oh,  Maurice,  don't  you 
see? — your  son  has  a  right  to!" 

But  her  husband  said,  quickly,  "Mary,  living  with  a 
f quarreling  father  and  mother  is  spiritual  illegitimacy; 
and  the  disadvantages  of  that  would  be  worse  than  the 
material  handicap  of  being  a — a  fatherless  child." 

His  daughter  flashed  a  passionately  grateful  look  at  him. 


376  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

Maurice,  still  speaking  to  Edith's  mother,  said:  "That's 
the  way  I  looked  at  it,  Mrs.  Houghton.  So  it  seemed  to 
me  that  I  could  do  more  for  him  if  I  didn't  marry  Lily." 

Mary  Houghton  was  silent;  it  was  very  necessary  to 
consider  the  stars. 

"I  put  myself  out  of  it,"  Maurice  said.  "I  just  said, 
'If  it's  best  for  Jacky,  I'll  ask  her  to  marry  me.'  My 
honest  opinion  was  that  it  would  be  bad  for  him." 

Edith  struck  two  chords — and  sat  down  on  the  piano 
stool,  swallowing  hard. 

"You  don't  agree  with  me,  I'm  afraid,  Mrs.  Houghton?'' 
he  said,  anxiously. 

"My  dear  boy,"  she  said,  "I  am  sure  you  are  doing 
what  you  believe  to  be  right.  But  it  does  not  seem  right 
to  me." 

He  flinched,  but  he  was  not  shaken;  "It  isn't  going  to 
be  easy,  whatever  I  do.  I  want  to  educate  him,  and  see 
him  constantly,  and  influence  him  as  much  as  possible. 
And  Lily  will  be  less  jealous  of  me,  in  her  own  house,  than 
she  would  be  in  mine." 

Edith  got  up  and  came  and  sat  on  the  arm  of  the  sofa  ( 
by  her  father.  "I  can  see,"  she  said,  "how  much  easier; 
it  would  be  for  Maurice  to  do  the  hard  thing." 

Maurice  looked  at  her  with  deep  tenderness.  "You' 
are  a  satisfying  person!"  he  said. 

Henry  Houghton  took  his  girl's  hand,  and  held  it  in  a 
grip  that  hurt  her.  ' '  Maurice  is  right, "  he  said ;  ' '  things  are 
not  going  to  be  easy  for  him.  For,  though  he  won't  marry 
Jacky's  mother,  he  won't,  I  think,  marry  anybody  else."  ' 

"Why  won't  he?"  said  Edith. 

"There  is  no  moral  reason  why  he  shouldn't,"  her  father 
conceded ;  "  it  is  a  question  of  taste ;  one  might  perhaps  call 
it  a  question  of  honor" — Maurice  whitened,  but  Henry 
Houghton  went  on,  calmly,  "Maurice  will,  of  necessity,  be 
so  involved  with  this  woman — and  God  knows  what 
annoyances  she  may  make  for  him,  that — it  distresses  me 
to  say  so — but  I  can  see  that  he  will  not  feel  like  asking 
any  woman  to  share  such  a  burden  as  he  has  to  carry." 


THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME  377 

^  "If  he  loves  any  woman,"  Edith  said,  "let  him  ask 
her !  If  she  turns  him  down,  it  stamps  her  for  a  coward !" 

"Don't  you  think  I'm  right,  Maurice?"  her  father 
I  said. 

1 '  Yes,"  Maurice  said.    "You  are  right.    I've  faced  that. " 

Edith  sprang  to  her  feet,  and  stood  looking  at  her 
father  and  mother,  her  eyes  stern  with  protecting  passion. 
>"It  seems  to  me  absurd,"  she  said, — "like  standing  up  so 
straight  you  fall  over  backward! — for  Maurice  to  feel  he 
can't  marry — somebody  else,  just  because  he — he  did 
wrong,  ever  so  many  years  ago !  He's  sorry,  now.  Aren't 
you  sorry,  Maurice?"  she  said. 

His  eyes  stung; — the  simplicity  of  the  word  was  like  a 
] flower  tossed  into  the  black  depths  of  his  repentance! 
j "Yes,  dear,"  he  said,  gently;  "I'm  'sorry.'  But  no 
amount  of  'sorrow'  can  alter  consequences,  Edith." 

"Oh,"  she  said,  turning  to  the  other  two,  "don't  you 
•want  Maurice  ever  to  be  happy?" 

"I  want  him  to  be  good,"  said  her  mother. 

"I  can't  be  happy,  Edith,"  Maurice  told  her;  "don't 
you  see?" 

She  looked  straight  in  his  eyes,  her  own  eyes  terror- 
'  stricken.  .  .  .  They  would  drive  him  away  from  her!  "You 
[shall  be  happy,"  she  said. 

They  saw  only  each  other,  now. 

"No,"  Maurice  said;  "it's  just  as  your  father  says; 
I  have  no  right  to  drag  any  girl  into  the  kind  of  life  I've 
got  to  live.  I'll  have  to  see  Lily  a  good  deal,  so  as  to  keep 
in  with  her — and  be  able  to  look  after  Jacky.  Personal 
happiness  is  all  over  for  me." 

She  caught  at  his  arm;  "It  isn't !  Maurice,  don't  listen 
to  them!"  Then  she  turned  and  stood  in  front  of  him,  as 
though  to  put  her  young  breast  between  him  and  that 
tender,  menacing  parental  love.  "Oh,  mother — oh, 
father!  I  do  love  you;  I  don't  want  to  do  anything  you 
don't  approve  of; — but  Maurice  comes  first.  If  he  asks 
me  to  marry  him,  I  will." 

Under  his  breath  Maurice  said,  "Edith!" 


378  THE  VEHEMENT  FLAME 

"My  darling,"  Henry  Houghton  said,  "consider:  peo- 
ple are  bound  to  know  all  about  this.  The  publicity  will  be 
a  very  painful  embarrassment —  " 

Edith  broke  in,  "As  if  that  matters!" 
"But  the  serious  thing,"  her  father  went  on,  "is  that 
this  woman  will  be  a  millstone  around  his  neck — " 

"She  shall  be  around  my  neck,  too!"  she  said.    There 
'  was  a  breathless  moment ;  then  Truth,  nobly  naked,  spoke : 
•/'Maurice,  duty  is  the  first  thing  in  the  world; — not  hap- 
piness.   If  you  thought  it  was  your  duty  to  marry  Lily, 
I  wouldn't  say  a  word.    You  would  never  know  that  I 
cared.     Never!     I'd  just  stand  by,  and  help  you.     I'd 
live  in  the  same  house  with  her,  if  it  would  help  you! 
:  But — "  her  voice  shook;  "you  don't  think  it's  your  duty. 
•  You  know  it  isn't !    You  know  that  it  would  make  things 
'  worse  for  Jacky, — not  better,  as  Eleanor  wanted  them  to 
be.     So  why  shouldn't  you  be  happy?    Oh,  it's  artificial, 
to  refuse  to  be  happy ! "    Before  he  could  speak,  she  added, 
quite  simply,  the  sudden  tears  bright  in  her  eyes,  "I  know 
you  love  me." 

He  looked  at  the  father  and  mother:    "You  wouldn't 
have  me  lie  to  her,  would  you? — even  to  save  her  from 
herself!  ...  Of  course  I  love  you,  Edith, — more  than 
anything  on  earth, — but  I  have  no  right — " 
"You  have  a  right,"  she  said. 

"I  want  you,"  he  said.  "God  knows,  it  would  mean 
life  to  me!  But—" 

"Then  take  me,"  she  said. 

Mrs.  Houghton  came  and  put  her  arms  around  her  girl, 
and  kissed  her.  "Take  her,  Maurice,"  she  said,  quietly. 
Then  she  looked  at  her  husband:  "Dear,"  she  said,  and 
smiled — a  little  mistily;  "wisdom  will  not  die  with  us! 
The  children  must  do  what  they  think  is  right.  .  .  .  Even 
if  it  is  wrong." 
She  had  considered  the  stars. 

THE  END 


